


That's Just What You Are

by all_the_kings_ham



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Destiel - Freeform, M/M, Mutual Pining, Things i find in my computer, Violence, Witches, a little plot heavy, a very old fic, bad choices, no one dies, some serious butt touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 04:37:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 54,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12697509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/all_the_kings_ham/pseuds/all_the_kings_ham
Summary: The brothers need help on a case that isn't going so well





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> guess who found their external hard drive and a bunch of old fics?

“We’re not the FBI, Sam. This isn’t our job.” Dean felt a little ill, tucking the photos back into the manila folder. 

Sam took the folder, setting it on the little table without opening it- obviously not wanting to look at the images again any more than his brother did. “You don’t know that.”

“It’s in the file. There’s nothing supernatural about these deaths- because they aren’t deaths.” Dean sat down on the edge of the little couch, perching on the arm because his body wasn’t willing to settle. Dean looked away, clenching his jaw, doing his best to think of things that weren’t those crime scene photos. The grey and pink wallpaper gave him no help. “Grave robbing is wrong- but we don’t really have room to judge.”

“Grave robbing is about stealing possessions, Dean- this thing is taking their hair and nails. It’s … different.” Sam sounded strained. He had that tense timber to his voice, to his whole stance since they had left the local police station with the files in hand.

They had come to Millington, Illinois on what had originally looked like a ghoul case- rumors in the local news about bodies dug up, bits missing. But ghouls ate the dead, these bodies, all six of them, had been mutilated… it was a slight, but important difference.   

“This could still be ours.” Sam quietly insisted. “There are lots of things that take parts of corpses.” 

“Yeah? Name one.” 

Sam, being the super nerd that he was, quickly rattled off a list of monsters who might steal bits of dead bodies. 

But Dean had seen the files. Those bodies had been taken apart with tools. The ground had been dug up with a backhoe. Monsters didn’t use backhoes. At least none that Dean had ever come across.

He let his eyes drift to his brother, skipping the table and its contents all together. “You’re making those up.”

“I am not.” Sam dug out their dad’s journal, looking for some kind of proof to convince Dean that this case was every bit up their ally and something that they should stay in this podunk little town for.

Dean couldn’t really blame his brother for wanting this to be one of their jobs. The alternative wasn’t pretty. The alternative was the reason that people locked their doors and told children not to talk to strangers- the reason that Dean didn’t trust people who drove vans with tinted windows. Because honestly it’s easier to believe in monsters than in the kind of cold blooded, human that could prey on the living and scavenge from the dead. 

He watched that intense look on his kid brother’s face, that unspoken pleading. Sam held out John’s battered old journal, open to a page with a yellowed Polaroid framed by their dad’s heavy script.

Dean dutifully took the journal and almost smiled when Sam visibly relaxed.

And Dean knew that they would stay here until it was done. They would look into this, this… this creep who was digging up and defiling cadavers, just so Sammy cold sleep at night knowing that they were still the good guys and that there was one less baddie in the world.

Dean didn’t like killing humans- just sort of on principle. So he hoped that Sam was right, and maybe Dean just missed something.

Or maybe they would get lucky and it would be a witch.

Very few things were as satisfying to Dean as ganking witches. Dean was always willing to make an exception for witches because they didn’t count as humans anymore. They lost that right.

Ten days later and they hadn’t found anything that made the mutilations look any more like the work of a monster and not just some sicko human working on one of the world’s creepiest collections.  No new bodies were found dug up- whatever was done was done- and Dean felt like they were wasting their time, but Sam wouldn’t listen to him. 

Dean was feeling frustrated.

Sam was tireless.

“Maybe there’s just nothing to find.” Dean peered down at the library’s microfiche of old newspapers, looming darkly over Sam’s shoulders. The date in the corner read 1938, they had gone back over half a century and still found nothing. Nothing to connect the bodies to each other except that they were some of freshest in the cemetery. Heart attacks, drunk driver, cancer, spanning two years with nothing in common except the dirt in which they were buried. 

The brothers could find no pattern, no record of this having happened before, here or in any of the neighboring cities. They were running out of strings to pull and it had started to make Sam a little desperate, which is why they were sitting in the town’s library… again. Dean swore he had spent so much time in this library that it felt more familiar to him than their hotel room. Dean found this wrong on a fundamental level. 

“We just haven’t looked in the right place yet. There has to be something.” Few people were as stubborn as Sam.

“Yeah, well- whatever it was, it’s gone now.” Dean rubbed at his eyes, tired of the florescent lights. “And so am I. I’ll meet you back at the motel tonight. I need some air.”

Sam grunted and kept on scrolling through the black and white films.

The heat outside hit Dean like a hammer and he staggered down the steps towards his car. The Impala was broiled to roughly the same temperature as the surface of the sun, and Dean opted to walk the two blocks to the diner that he had been scoping out for the past week. He could see the fresh pie display from the street, and it was calling to him.

By the time he pulled open the heavy glass doors the back of his shirt was soaked with sweat, plastering it to him like a second skin. He took a booth where he could see the doors and the little wall mounted tv alike. The red vinyl seat squeaked against his back and he smile to himself.

“What can I get you, darlin’?” The waitress, old enough to be his grandmother, set a tall glass of water at his elbow.

“A piece of your finest pie, mam.” He fell into a good ol’ boy smile as easily as taking a breath.

“Apple, cherry, or peach?” Her eyes looked pale behind her square glasses, but they crinkled just right while she smiled back, sweeter than honey.

“Surprise me.” He found himself grinning, his spirits immediately being lifted by the bright atmosphere and the promise of pastries.

She winked one of those grey eyes at him and left.

He slouched down into the booth, sipping at the water, feeling the icy cold sliding all the way down his throat. It was late afternoon, too late for the lunch crowd, a bit too early for the dinner crowd and Dean almost had the whole place to himself. There was a young couple, probably ditching whatever high school class they should be in right now, sharing a chocolate shake and holding hands. 

His pie arrived, cherry, and it was sticky sweet and perfect. He opted not to watch the kids in the corner, and looked up at the tv between bites. It was some news show, the volume too low to even hear in the quiet of the diner- but Dean could read the heavily made up newscasters and their heavily made up smiles. 

It was damn good pie.

The news cast shifted and a serious looking woman with serious hair and a down turned mouth came on, the word ‘live’ in the top right of the screen. There was an obscured crime scene some distance behind her, draped in yellow and black like tickertape, gleaming plastic under the high sun. 

The fork slid from Dean’s hand as he stood. “Hey, can we get some volume on the set?”

But his waitress must have been on break, because he seemed to be the only one of the floor other than the teens who looked at him with mild interest, before glancing at the screen, then back to each other.

Dean turned the volume up all by himself, since no one was interested in helping him, and he felt a wrinkle forming between his eyes, the taste of cherries turning to ash on his tongue.

“-found this afternoon in an empty lot behind the Ralph’s. Police still do not know the identity of the young woman. Local law enforcement have not yet linked the incident here to the one two weeks ago off of Sandhill Road, and no suspect has been taken into custody. Residents are asked to report any suspicious activity to the local sheriff’s department. More news as follows.” 

And just like that, the news cast cut back to the main station where two reporters sat at their table, with small frowns, expressing their grief over the death of the young girl.

Such a tragedy.

Very upsetting.

Dean tossed a ten down on the table and practically ran back to the library.

He found Sam right where he left him, up to his eyes in microfiche, looking drawn.

“They found another body.” 

“Really?” Sam looked up immediately. 

“Dude, don’t sound so happy about it.” Dean said with mild horror. This wasn’t the kind of thing you were allowed to get excited about.

Sam was already grabbing his stuff, getting ready to follow Dean. “Was it in the same cemetery?”

“No. This one’s fresh.”

And Sam went from weirdly exhilarated to stone cold in a heartbeat. “Where?”

They got the crime scene in under an hour, and the heat combined with their suits was almost enough to lapse Dean into heatstroke.

Sam was melting too, but he hid it better, despite his long hair wet and dark against his neck.

They were lucky enough to have one of the police officers they met their first day in town be present at the scene, and he was more than happy to take Agents ‘Coverdale’ and ‘Sykes’ to look at the body.

The girl couldn’t have been more than fourteen. She was lying face down in the dry scrub brush, naked except for the pale brown dirt smeared on her thin, tan body. Scratches, bruises, and she must have been dumped out there the night before. Her body hadn’t fared well in the heat of the afternoon.

Dean made himself look at her, because he needed to have a reason for the rage building in his chest. What kind of monster could do this to a little girl? To someone’s daughter?

Sam had already walked away, turned his back on the body.

But you can’t expect anyone to look at something like that for too long.

It wasn’t healthy.

Dean had to turn away too.

“This isn’t right.” He said quietly to his brother, standing side by side, watching traffic moving slowly out on the street.

“Why would it take just her nails and hair?” Sam didn’t seem to hear him, lost in his own little nightmare.

“You think it’s the same guy?” Dean tried to draw him out, he didn’t want to have this conversation by himself.

“Pretty fucking awful coincidence otherwise, don’t you think?” Sam glanced down at him. Sweat had run into his eyes, rimming them in red.

“But why escalate from corpses to this kid?” He tugged his tie loose, unbuttoning the top two buttons of his shirt.

“I think we’ve been looking at this wrong.” Sam sounded rough as he didn’t answer the question.

“You think it’s human now?” It didn’t matter so much to Dean anymore, because he was going to find who did this. He would. And when he did, it wouldn’t matter if they were human, monster, or something in between. He was going to break it.

“I think we won’t find it on our own.”

“You think we should call Bobby?” Dean frowned a little harder, not understanding where Sam was going with this.

“I think you should call your boyfriend.” Sam probably meant it as a joke, but Dean didn’t smile. It wasn’t funny.

But he didn’t try to defend himself; any objection would just come off like some kind of guilt. “Shut up.” He almost got his keys out and left. He didn’t have to put up with this. 

“I just think he might be able to tell… if it’s human or not. He sees things different than we do.”

“So call him. You’ve got his number.” Dean pulled off his jacket, feeling sick from the heat.

“You know he doesn’t pick up when I call.” And Sam got a smile, just a small, negligible curve of his lips. “Cas only answers when it’s you.”

“Bite me.” But he was already getting his phone out.


	2. Chapter 2

The phone rang somewhere in one of his coat pockets, sharp, startling him from his quiet reverie. It was the ring that Dean had programmed in himself, a piece of a song played far too loud, and it always caught him off guard. He looked away from the lake, and its swaying grasses and delicate birds. He had come here for peace, to collect his thoughts. He would have been bothered by the intrusion, if it hadn’t been Dean.

He always found it hard to get upset with Dean. Even when he knew that he should. Even when everyone else did.

“Yes?” He asked in way of greeting, even though he knew what words would come next. Dean was not always predictable. Most of the time he completely startled and confused Castiel… but not when he called. He only ever called for one reason.

Dean’s voice came soft and familiar- and Cas felt a warmth in his stomach. “Hey, Cas. We could use your help.” 

Castiel liked that he knew his friend so well.

“Where are you?” He got to his feet.

“Millington, Illinois. It’s right next to Jolliet.” 

And Castiel brought himself down alongside the hunter with a single beat of his wings.

Dean’s eyebrows shot up, the whites of his eyes intense against his summer tan. “God damn it, Cas.”

Castiel’s brow twitched minutely at the blasphemy.

“Don’t just pop in like that.” The hunter closed his phone with a clap and he tucked it away. “Someone’s gunna’ notice.”

Castiel looked around, taking in the collection of police officers standing about, all pointedly not looking at a too small body lying among the weeds. 

“They seem otherwise occupied.” The Angel let him know, not entirely sure how Dean hadn’t noticed.

“Hey, Cas.” Sam offered a strained smile and a nod.

“Sam.” He nodded back… it seemed like the right thing to do. “What do you need?”

The younger brother looked like he was about to answer, but Dean cut him off quickly, demanding Castiel’s attention. 

“Someone dug up some bodies from the local cemetery and cut ‘em up. That was two weeks ago and now we’ve got a fresh one. Same kind of damage.”

“And what is it that you expect me to do about this?” He tore his eyes from Dean, looking to the girl that someone was finally moving into a large black bag. She looked so small and broken and Castiel couldn’t understand how one person could do that to another. He couldn’t understand how his father could have given the ability for such violence to the things he had created.

“We-we’re not sure what we’re hunting this time.” Sam sounded almost guilty, like such a thing had never happened to him before. “We’ve been looking for days and haven’t come up with anything. We don’t even know if it’s even human or …something else.”

The boys didn’t hunt down humans. They left such things to the police. Castiel looked over at the men in uniforms  and the ambulance that they were loading the poor child into. It took two men to lift her, which Castiel thought odd because she was small enough that the task could have been accomplished by only one. 

He looked up at Sam, craning his neck. “Again, what is it that you expect me to do?” He could not undo what had been done. Her soul had left hours ago and it was not his place to call it back. She was at peace now.

“Use your mojo, Cas.” Dean demanded. “See if there’s any …monster residue that we aren’t seeing.”

“Residue?” 

“You know, anything that points to…” He scuffed his boots, sending up a pale dust cloud. “-to whatever did this. We need a direction to go in. We’re getting nowhere on our own.” 

Castiel sensed that it took a lot for Dean to ask for help, and he didn’t understand the strain. But Dean was a proud man, and he tended to see in himself signs of weakness where there were none.

 The police were dissipating, some getting into small black and white cars, some stepping further away to have drinks from little styrofoam cups. The Angel walked among them, relatively unnoticed. He saw the footprints of many men, the trampled weeds, the indian red smears in the dirt where the child’s blood had dried. He looked for a mark, some remnant of something. Anything that might help Dean.

He found nothing.

“I’m sorry.” He honestly was. “But whoever did this to her did it elsewhere. I sense nothing, human or otherwise.”

Dean looked accepting of this news, though not happy.

Sam was frowning. “Maybe there’s something in the cemetery.”

“I can take him.” Dean spoke fast and earned an odd look from his younger brother. “You go with the ambulance, Sammy. I think they said they were taking her into Aurora for the autopsy.”

“Alright.” His brother said slowly, glancing at Cas, then back at Dean. “I’ll call if they find anything.” He left on his long legs, talking to a man in uniform before getting into the back of the ambulance with the body.

Castiel was alone with Dean. He looked over at the hunter, expectantly.

“Come on, dude.” Dean shook his keys in the air between them before making his way to the street where his car glistened bright afternoon, like wet obsidian. Castiel trailed a little behind, not making an effort to catch up- because he sort of enjoyed watching Dean walking, even though he didn’t know why. Dean was sweating, the back of his shirt wet, and the muscles in his shoulders visible though the thin white fabric.

Castiel was the only person in that field still wearing a jacket. His vessel didn’t sweat, or at least it hadn’t so far. It seemed like an unpleasant thing to do, and even so, Castiel always had to fight the temptation to reach out and touch his friend when he was like this. To feel the wetness of his skin.

He got into the car, sitting in Sam’s usual seat, folding his hands uncomfortably in his lap. “How long have you and your brother been investigating these murders?”

“Only one  _murder_  so far.” He started up the car, with a quick jerk of the keys. “The other six bodies’ve been dead for months or longer. There were no signs of anything unnatural in the deaths… we looked.” He rapped his hand against the wheel as he drove, his ring making a steady rhythm. “Now, I personally think it’s just some psychopath who wasn’t satisfied in robbing graves and went after something a bit fresher." He hit his hand a little harder against the wheel and Castiel blinked. “Sam’s leaning towards it being something else, but he can’t figure out what yet. I’m gunna’ find it either way, and kill the son of a bitch.” He wore an intense expression, a little hollow in his cheek from where he was biting it.

“I don’t know how much help I will be.” Castiel confessed. “I’m not a hunter.”

“Not asking you to hunt, Cas. Just see if you can find something we couldn’t. You look at the world a bit different than we do. You’ve been around a lot longer, seen a lot more.” 

The Impala pulled into the parking lot of a dusty motel and Dean cut the engine. 

“I thought we were going to the cemetery.” He hesitated, not really wanting to question Dean or his motives, whatever they might be. The man usual had a fairly clear idea what he was doing.

“We are, but I need to get out of this monkey suit.” He pulled himself from the car, squinting into the sun. “Maybe get a shower. I smell like an armpit’s asshole.”

Castiel thought that Dean smelled wonderful, but he knew better than to say such things. Instead he followed, appreciating the view, all the way into the motel room.


	3. Chapter 3

Cas turned away from the crime scene, looking crestfallen. “I’m sorry. But whoever did this to her did it elsewhere. I sense nothing, human or otherwise.”

Dean sighed, looking down at the weeds.

 “Maybe there’s something in the cemetery.” Sam offered with not much hope.

And Dean got an idea, sudden and irrational. He spoke before thinking. “I can take him.” He offered too quickly and immediately regretted it, feeling a slight flush creep up his neck. For the first time that day, he was grateful for the heat because it served as a disguise. “You go with the ambulance, Sammy. I think they said they were taking her into Aurora for the autopsy.”

Sam worked his jaw, looking like he might say something damning before slowly shaking his head. “Alright.”  His gaze flicked to Cas, then back to his brother, a knowing weight in his eyes. “I’ll call if they find anything.” He walked away, glancing back over his shoulder, warning and caution and all kinds of emotions on his face.

And Dean was sweating.

Sam thought he knew what was going on with Dean.

Dean didn’t even know what was going on with Dean.

He looked over, and just like that, he was alone with Cas.  _Damn it_. And it was obvious to himself that he hadn’t thought this one through all the way.

Cas wore one of those odd expressions of his, all wide eyed and expectant.

Looking for a distraction, he pulled out his keys, jingling them together with a nice familiar noise that always calmed him. “Come on, dude.” 

His baby sat out in the hot hot sun, gleaming, almost blindingly bright, the heat coming off her in waves. It was just too damn hot right now. He needed to change out of his suit. Polyester was not a friend of summer. 

The rumpled Angel of the Lord climbed into the passenger seat. “How long have you and your brother been investigating these murders?”

“Only one  _murder_  so far.” He started up the car, with a quick jerk of the keys. He rambled while he drove. No real idea what he was saying. He couldn’t get the images of that little girl out of his head, so he let his mouth run until he was out of words.

“I don’t know how much help I will be.” Castiel said into the pause. “I’m not a hunter.”

Dean almost smiled in spite of himself. “Not asking you to hunt, Cas. Just see if you can find something we couldn’t. You look at the world a bit different than we do. You’ve been around a lot longer, seen a lot more.” 

He parked in front of the motel, killing the engine. His hands restless on the wheel.

“I thought we were going to the cemetery.” Cas looked over at him, eyebrows low.

“We are.” He assured, opening the door. “But I need to get out of this monkey suit.” Dean stood, squinting against the sunlight, thinking he should invest in some sunglasses. “Maybe get a shower. I smell like an armpit’s asshole.”

The room’s little window air-conditioning unit sputtered to life, not offering much relief. 

“Take a load off, Cass. I’ll be right out.” He grabbed his duffle off the floor, fishing out some jeans and a tshirt, but paused at the bathroom door. Cas seemed to have taken him literally, or at least as close as he could manage, and was stripping off his jacket slowly.

Dean honestly couldn’t think of a single time he had seen the Angel without the article of clothing. It was like watching someone pull of their skin. He couldn’t look away.

Cas seemed to notice that he was being watched and paused with his arms still half hidden in the sleeves. An uncertain look crossed his face. “You didn’t mean to…”  

“No- I mean, no, it’s fine.” He bit his lower lip, suddenly uncertain as well. An alien feeling that he didn’t like at all. “Take it off. It’s over a hundred out there. You shouldn’t be wearing a jacket anyhow.”

“Heat doesn’t bother me.” But he slid the rest of the way out of the jacket and set it on one of the chairs before sitting himself down on the edge of a bed. He looked practically naked despite the fact that he was still fully dressed. Somehow much smaller and less imposing without his armor.

Dean fled into the bathroom before his thoughts had a chance to grow any stranger.

A quick rinse off and a wardrobe change later found him and the Angel at the Millington cemetery, final resting place of upwards of two hundred bodies. It was honestly one of the smallest cemeteries that Dean had ever been to and it didn’t take long to walk around each of the graves that had been dug up two weeks ago. 

Instead of going through a reinvestigation of the now filled graves, Dean found the shade of an oak tree and leaned against it, watching Cas make the rounds. The Angel peered intently at each fresh mound of earth, touching the grass, the soil, the headstones, like there would be a quiz later. He wore his typical little frown, obviously not finding anything that might help the boys.

And Dean didn’t know what he and Sam had been hoping for. What was Cas supposed to find that two hunters and a score of police officers hadn’t been able to find? There weren’t finger prints or claw marks. There wasn’t any sulfur or skin- or any hint of ceremony to the thing. There wasn’t anything to find that they hadn’t already.

Even in the shade, it was too hot. Dean let his head fall back against the trunk of the tree, closing his eyes and listening to the birds and the soft sounds of Cas walking around nearby. 

“Dean?” Cas’ voice sounded distant and Dean struggled to open his eyes. “Is this the sort of thing I am looking for?”

The Angel stood before one of the three mausoleums that were used to house cremated remains. They were small structures, no bigger than garden sheds, each surrounded by little wrought iron fences.

“I don’t know.” He pushed off the tree, making his way over. “What’d you find?”

The answer was 'not much'. Cas pointed at some small scribbles around the base of the building- white chalk against pale granite. It was almost invisible. It certainly didn’t look like much. But at the same time Dean was positive that the markings hadn’t been there two weeks ago when he and Sam came through. They had thoroughly searched each of the little buildings and found nothing.

“What are they?” Even as he asked, Dean could tell by the look on Cas’ face that he didn’t know what they were.

“Writings of some kind. They are mostly washed away.”

“Probably have the sprinkler system to thank for that one.” He shouldered open the heavy door, swinging it inward with much protest, and was greeted with a stale smell. The mausoleums were virtually air tight, keeping out bugs and dust and other things. Things like water.

He needed to see if the writings were on the inside too. 

Just this once, he might get lucky.

There were no windows in the small space, just walls with little metal placards, names of the dead engraved in careful letters. It was too dark to see much, and while Dean fished out his lighter to use as a makeshift flashlight, Cas joined him.

It was a small space. Made all the much smaller by the addition of a second person.

“Cas, you mind-” and before he could finish his thought, or even open his lighter they were plunged into darkness. 


	4. Chapter 4

Castiel circled the cemetery a second time, reading the names and dates on each tombstone. They meant nothing to him. There were no connections that he could see, there was no… what had Dean called it?  _Monster residue_? If it weren’t for the large rectangular patches of bare earth where the grass had yet to grow back- he would say that nothing of interest had ever happened in the little cemetery.

He glanced over at Dean, ready to apologize again, but it seemed as if the hunter had fallen asleep leaning up against the tree. So Cas kept quiet, and maybe kept his eyes on his friend a little longer than he knew was right to do. But Dean’s eyes were closed and he couldn’t give that disapproving frown that he got anytime the Angel strayed too far from ‘socially acceptable behavior’.

It wasn’t often that he had a chance to see Dean with his arms bared. He normally had on a jacket or flannel.  Cas found that he liked the look of Dean’s arms, the tightness to the muscles where they were folded over his chest. And it was probably not normal to admire someone’s arms, especially not Dean’s. Castiel had a feeling that he was earning himself a lecture.

He had no idea why Dean thought he had any right to lecture an Angel.

He also had no idea why he let Dean lecture him.

Their relationship was… tricky in some places. 

He turned to make one last sweet of the grounds, and his eye caught the little stone buildings in the corner, not for the first time. They looked innocent enough, tucked away in the corner amongst the statures of angels and crosses. He walked closer, over the gently sloping grass and frowned at the stone walls.

“Dean?” He called out, turning to see the hunter still resting against the old tree. “Is this the sort of thing I’m looking for?”

Even from the other end of the cemetery, Dean’s eyes were intense. Greener than the grass on which he stood. “I don’t know.” He sounded almost annoyed at being woken, but he started making his way to Cas. “What’d you find?”

Castiel's  mouth had gone dry and the words that he wanted seemed to have fled, and none of that involuntary response made any sense to him. He looked away from Dean with his slow swagger, and instead pointed to the mausoleum.

Dean came to stand beside him, radiating warmth. He still smelled wonderful and Cas didn’t mention it. He was getting good at this whole 'acting normal' thing.

“What are they?” Dean asked.

“Writings of some kind.” Castiel answered simply, confused that Dean couldn’t see that. “They are mostly washed away.”

The hunter grunted in reply, which didn’t mean much of anything to Castiel, but Dean was like that sometimes. 

Castiel started to wander over to a different building, but paused when he saw that Dean had decided that they would open this one. It was hard to walk away when his friend was putting on such a splendid display of strength. And yes, it was true that Castiel’s grace made him considerably stronger than the human- it was also a sad truth that Castiel’s muscles never moved quite like that. 

He resisted an urge to put his hands on Dean’s arms, to feel the strength in them while he struggled with the door. It was a stupid urge anyways. It wouldn’t get him anything other than a weird look and a snide comment.

The door slid inward with the rough protest of stone rubbing against stone, and Dean ducked into the shadows. 

Castiel followed. Why wouldn’t he? Dean obviously missed the writings the first time- if there were any inside he would most likely miss them as well.

“Cas, you mind-” and the door groaned closed behind Castiel- which he thought quite odd for the fact that there was no draft and the thing was obviously too heavy to close on its own.

“The fuck?” Dean exclaimed far too loudly in too small of a space. “Open the damn door, Cas.”

Which was precisely what the Angel was attempting to do, but he found no handle on the inside and his fingers could not slip into the hairline seam of the door to pull it open.

The soft  _click_ _click_  of Dean’s lighter and the tomb was bathed in flickering golden light, no brighter than a candle. He looked oddly startled to see Castiel so close to him, but in such a small space, the Angel had no idea where else he was supposed to go.

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean, you can’t?” His eyes reflected the little flame, all gold and green in the dying light.

“There is no handle.”

“Of course there’s a handle, so idiots like us don’t get locked inside.” He leaned around Castiel, their shoulders brushing. “Where the hell’s the handle?”

“Obviously it is on the outside of the door.” Sometimes it felt like explaining things to a child.

“Use your Angel juice and blast it open.” Dean demanded.

Castiel did not bother to explain that the door swung inward and a strong blast of energy would not be able to reverse the placement of the hinges. He would have to tear the whole door off, which went against his better judgment. This was a cemetery, hallowed ground. Not the sort of place where breaking things was appropriate.

He ignored the command and places a hand on Dean’s shoulder, intending to simply  _blink_  the two of them back outside. But Castiel had to pull on his grace to use it, to let the power burn through him, and when he reached for it- he found nothing. It wasn’t gone. He could feel that perfect warmth of power and strength that came from his grace, but it slid away from him like starlight.

It wasn't something that had ever happened to him. He looked down at himself, confused and slightly worried.

Dean shrugged off Castiel’s hand, stepping back a half step, which was all the small space allowed him. He had an odd look on his face, his emotions unreadable in the flickering light.

But Castiel had always struggled to name the things that passed over Dean’s face, so maybe it wasn’t fair to blame the light.

“Open the door, Cas.” His voice had dropped, gone as soft as a whisper. As soft as a sigh.

“I can’t.”

“What’d you mean, you can’t?”

“The writings on the outside, what's left of them, look like enochian.” He had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach as he assessed the amount of trouble that they were in.

“And that means what to us?”

“It means that they must not have all been washed away, perhaps on the far side, or on the roof there are some still intact.” He looked up, as if he could see them through the stone.

“In English, Cas.” The lighter died and Dean struggled in a furry of clicks until they could see each other again.

“This room is warded against Angels.”

“Are you serious?”

“This is not the sort of thing that I would joke about, Dean.”

Dean erupted in a string of curses and Castiel watched in silence, knowing it was best to wait for the storm to blow itself out.

It took longer than he expected, mostly because the lighter’s flame kept going out, and the tense moments of darkness seemed to only give Dean something new to curse. 

“I’m calling Sam.” He announced once he caught his breath. He held the lighter aloft and dug into a pocket, presumably to get his phone- but by the look of consternation, Castiel knew that something was wrong.

“Fuck!” Dean yelled loudly, his voice bounding off the near wall. 

The lighter died again, but this time he didn’t struggle to immediately bring it back to life. The two of them stood in darkness, Dean’s ragged breaths the only sound.

“My phone’s back at the motel.” He finally said with a note of defeat in his voice.

Castiel considered this, and the sort of predicament that it placed them in. “Sam knows where we are. When he returns to the motel and you aren’t there he will come here to find you.”

 _Click_ _click_ _click_  

But there was no light.

“He’s in Aurora. He won’t be back for a few hours at least.”

“So we will wait for him.” It was inconvenient, yes. But even so, Castiel could think of no one else he would rather be trapped in the little stone tomb with.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean leaned back against the wall, surprised to find that the stone was cool to the touch. Even if he was trapped in here, at least it wasn’t hot. It did smell musty though, like old leaves and dust. It made his nose itch. He also couldn’t find a single place to stand where he wasn’t within arm’s reach of Cas. So close that he could feel the other man’s breath when he was facing the right way. Any illusion of personal space violently ripped away from him.

But... at least it wasn’t hot.

He didn’t bother with his lighter. The only thing to see was Cas’ stupid face and he could only look at him for so long. So they stood together in the darkness, with one long pause after another.

“This is so stupid.” He muttered half to himself.

“At least you have some kind of clue about your killer.” Cas offered like it was some kind of consolation.

“Do I?” He realized quickly that there was a bit more anger in his words than was warranted. It wasn’t the Angel’s fault that they were stuck in here. Sure, he wasn’t helping them get out- but neither was Dean.

“They seem to know enochian. That does narrow your search somewhat.”

“Great.” So now he had a killer that knew about Angels, how to trap them, and a desire to do so.

He failed to see how this was helpful at this particular moment.

Cas took the two steps from the door to the back of their little box, the side of this thigh brushing against the front of Dean’s, and his heart was suddenly in his throat. He closed his eyes against the dark and counted his breaths. 

This was still stupid.

Not just being trapped- but being trapped with Castiel, without enough room between them to swing a cat. Dean wasn’t going to make it out of here in one piece. He was weak, and the longer it took Sam to find them he closer Dean found himself to making a life-changingly bad decision.

A few months back Dean had had a string of odd dreams. Nothing important in them- nothing that he really remembered in any kind of detail come morning… at least not that he would ever admit to. They came almost nightly for a while and left him waking in a sweat with a hand down his the front of his jeans and an ache in the pit of his stomach. Which was uncomfortable enough on its own- but pair that with sleeping in the car for two nights with Sam while they were out in the middle of Montana and it was a recipe for downright disaster. Apparently he had woken Sam up by moaning out Cas’ name.

Sam, being the good younger brother that he was, had teased Dean up until the point that Dean punched him square in the jaw and the two of them tumbled out onto the side of the road swinging like heavy weight boxers.

They didn’t talk about it after that- but Sam kept giving him that look. That knowing look that was damnation to Dean. 

The dreams came with less frequency now. Dean did his best to kill them with curvy blonds that he could pick up from bars along the road. He figured that his body just had a craving that needed to be satisfied, and sex wasn’t hard to come by. He was doing ok now.

Or at least he had been until he got locked in here with Cas, who kept passing by him, and carelessly brushing against every few seconds.

“Damn it, Cas. Just stand still.”

“Sorry.” And the scuff of his shoes stopped.

And then all they had was darkness and the hushed noised of their breaths.

“How… how air tight do you think this thing is?” A horrible thought just occurred to Dean.

“I feel no drafts. It seems fairly tight.” Cas said in his oh-so-calm way.

“Fairly tight like, this is some damn good craftsmanship, or fairly tight like if Sam doesn’t get here in a few hours we’re going to suffocate?” His voice didn’t sound right, but it was only because he was suddenly nervous, terrified in fact and the sensation was unfamiliar for a moment.

The Angel was quiet for an unduly long span of time before he spoke again. “I suppose that that is a possibility.”

“You suppose?” Anger helped to crush the fear.

“But with a building this size we probably have at least five hours left before we will start to notice any ill effects.”

It took two blind grabs in the darkness before he caught hold of the front of Cas’ shirt, shaking him slightly. “Ill effects? This isn’t drinking too much on a Saturday night, or taking the wrong pills, Cas. This is suffocating in a stupid stone box in the middle of nowhere. This is possibly one of the fucking dumbest ways to die.”

“An allergic reaction to a ladybug bite would be more embarrassing I think.” He said in his deadpan way, like he wasn’t being throttled. Just so damn calm all the time.

“Shut up, Cas.”

“I just think that in the scheme of things, suffocation is not the  _worst_  way to go. Many great men and women have died by suffocation.”

“Just shut up.” He let go of Cas before he took a swing at him. It wasn’t the Angel’s fault. He had to remind himself, again.

 He would have started pacing if there was room for it, but one step one way gave him a wall, one step the other would have given him Cas. 

So Dean stood in the corner for the first time since he was three, put his face in his hands and tried to breathe a little less.


	6. Chapter 6

“How… how air tight do you think this thing is?” Dean asked, his voice suddenly low.

Castiel thought about that, about the undisturbed dust on the floor, at the staleness of the air. “I feel no drafts. It seems fairly tight.” 

“Fairly tight like, this is some damn good craftsmanship, or fairly tight like if Sam doesn’t get here in a few hours we’re going to suffocate?” 

The question startled him. It wasn’t something that he had ever considered before that point. Could he suffocate? Did he even need to breathe? 

He held his breath, just long enough that he started to feel dizzy- and that was answer enough for him. It seemed he had found yet another flaw in having a human vessel. He began to feel uneasy at Dean’s suggestion. “I suppose that that is a possibility.”

“You suppose?” Dean wasn’t whispering now. He was yelling, and Castiel knew that he would never understand how his friend’s moods could shift so suddenly. 

Castiel tried to calm Dean down, offering the only comfort that came to his mind. “But with a building this size we probably have at  _least_  five hours left before we will start to notice any ill effects.” 

And Dean removed the little distance that they had shared and took hold of Castiel with both hands. He felt his eyes widen, startled by the sudden contact. Without his jacket in the way, Dean was holding onto his undershirt- the simple white button down that Jimmy had worn the night that Castiel took him. It was very thin fabric and he could feel the heat of Dean’s hands against his chest, insignificant weights that pinned him in place with marvelous efficiency.  

 “Ill effects?” Even though Castiel couldn’t see, he knew that Dean’s face was only inches from his while he spoke. “This isn’t drinking too much on a Saturday night, or taking the wrong pills, Cas. This is suffocating in a stupid stone box in the middle of nowhere. This is possibly one of the fucking dumbest ways to die.”

He couldn’t think clearly for some reason, his mind clouded by proximity. He knew he was supposed to say something. “An allergic reaction to a ladybug bite would be more embarrassing I think.” He was speaking nonsense. Even he didn’t understand what he was saying anymore. What was wrong with him?

“Shut up, Cas.”

“I just think that in the scheme of things, suffocation is not the  _worst_  way to go. Many great men and women have died by suffocation.” He was rambling, talking too fast, words that he didn’t plan, that flowed out of him to fill the silence.

“Just shut up.” Dean pushed him roughly into the wall before letting go and retreating to the far corner of their little prison.

For some strange reason, despite the fact that he knew he had no reason to, Castiel felt lonely. He placed his own hands on his chest, trying to mimic the feeling of Dean against him, but it wasn’t the same. His mouth felt dry, his thoughts a shambles. He closed his eyes and wondered why he was shaking.

“I think it would be best if we try and remain composed.” He advised himself, only half aware that he was talking out loud. 

Dean took a sharp breath. “Composed?”

Castiel recognized that tone of voice, it was the particular pitch that Dean tended to get right before him and Sam fell into some kind of half violent argument. 

Just like that, Dean’s hands were on him again, and Castiel could have pulled away, could have subdued the other man, but he didn’t. He let Dean grab at his hands and collar, let the hunter pull him off the wall, swing him to the right and slam his back into the back corner of the room. 

Dean was closer than Castiel had ever let him get, their knees brushing, Dean’s shallow breaths ghosting over his lips. Castiel marveled at how close in height the two of them were. He had never really noticed before. 

 “How can you just stand there, calm as fuck? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Castiel blinked into the darkness, wishing for a shred of light he could use to see his friend. “What do you mean?”

Even after living among humans for so many years, he still struggled to understand them. How could someone like Dean, someone so strong, so fearless in the face of everything the world had thrown at him up until this point- how could something so small set him off like this? The hunter was falling apart and the Angel had no idea how to help him.

“We’re going to die in a few hours, Cas. Normal people panic about something like that.” It was almost a command. “I’m panicking.” He pushed hard on Castiel’s shoulders, punctuating his words.

Castiel considered this question deeply and when he finally answered he spoke slow, not quite trusting himself “Would you feel better if I were to panic as well?”

“Fuck yes. This is the perfect time to panic, Cas.”

And how do you panic if you’ve never really done it before? But panic seemed like a fairly irrational human emotion- just like the feeling that he had churning through him now. So he gave into it, just like Dean told him to.

He got one hand on Dean’s collar, the other on one of his rough cheeks, and he crashed their mouths together in one of the violently world shattering kisses that he had seen in the movies that Sam and Dean watched.

Castiel lost himself in it for a breath, becoming nothing more than the touch of warm skin, the scratch of stubble and the pounding of blood- but then Dean pulled away, gasping, sounding ruined.

“What are you doing, Cas?”

“Panicking.” The Angel said simply and pulled Dean back in.


	7. Chapter 7

“Composed?” Dean choked on the word. Just where did Cas get off talking to him like the crisis officer charged with talking the crazy guy off the high-rise ledge?

He grabbed for Cas again, fumbling over the Angel’s hands before finding his neck. Skin against skin and Dean wasn’t thinking straight anymore. He caught Cas’ collar, gripped him tight and pulled him off the wall before slamming him into the other side of their little box. It was something that he had done a thousand times over with Sam- but his brother always threw him off.

Cas didn’t.

Cas just stood there, sandwiched between Dean and a wall, and breathed slowly, as composed and unflappable as he had always been.  

He shook the Angel, twisting the collar of his shirt between his hands. “How can you just stand there, calm as fuck? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Maybe Cas didn’t need to come apart at the seams. Maybe he had divine faith or something else equally intangible telling him that everything would turn out fine. But Dean didn’t. All Dean had was the fear that despite everything else that he had been though, that he would die a quiet, insignificant death. 

“What do you mean?” Cas asked, no sign of any emotion in his voice, just as indifferent as he always was.

 “We’re going to die in a few hours, Cas. Normal people panic about something like that.” Dean tried to get thought to him- tried to get him to understand. " _I’m panicking_." He fought with himself, feeling lost. 

Cas shifted just a little under Dean’s hands. Not that the Angel had ever had much of an expressive face, but Dean had come to rely on those little twitches, the tiny flickers in his deep eyes. Without light it was impossible to see his face. More impossible than usual to tell what he was thinking. 

“Would you feel better if I were to panic as well?” 

Dean wanted to yell, but he bit his tongue and managed to growl instead. “Fuck yes. This is the perfect time to panic, Cas.”

Without missing a beat, Cas grabbed him and for a moment Dean felt his anger still- adrenaline vitrifying his blood. They were going to have a fight and Dean knew from experience how much stronger Cas actually was. 

Why the hell had he wanted to pick a fight with a god damned Angel?

He was going to get himself killed.

And like no one had ever shown the Angel the rule book on how you’re supposed to fight, Cas bit him. Just straight up bit Dean. Right on the mouth. It was worse than fighting dirty, it was some straight up Hannibal Lecter action and Dean had no idea what to do.

He braced for the pain of it even as he struggled to pull away- but the pain didn’t come and Dean had the crashing realization that Cas wasn’t actually trying to bit him, despite the overly enthusiastic use of teeth. 

Dean used his grip on the Angels’ shirt to gain leverage enough to push away. “What are you doing, Cas?”

“Panicking.” He replied simply before taking Dean by the mouth once more.

Cas was kissing him, and Dean had the slightly amusing and uncomfortable inclination that this was probably his first attempt at it.

As far as Dean could figure, he had two strong options at this point in his life. 

One: he could back the hell up, tell Cas  _again_  about personal space, and pretend that it never happened. Then he could carry on for the rest of his life suffering this deep keening feeling every time he looked at Cas. 

Or two: he could kiss Cas back like he had so many times in his dreams. Over and over and over again.   

Both plans had merit.

But sometimes you know a guy for years, and they save your ass more times than you care to count. Sometimes you get to the point that they pass from being a strange annoyance into being one of your best friends. Sometimes funny feelings start to develop that you just get tired of fighting- and those feelings start to dictate your choices for you instead of logic and reason.

He let go of Cas’ collar and slid his hands up into that short dark hair, carding his fingers and holding tight. He pulled Cas back, tilting his head, forcing a breathless space between them. 

“Take it easy.” He demanded in the gentlest way he knew how. He lowered his mouth, ghosting over the Angel’s. 

“Easy?” Cas’ voice was rougher than normal, a feat in and of itself. His tongue darted out to lick Dean’s upper lip and the hunter’s breath left him in a rush, his body tightening in response.

 “Less teeth, Cas. I ain’t edible.” If they were going to do this, they we’re going to do it right.

Dean let himself go, the tension in his shoulders and the hesitation in his gut, and kissed Castiel like he had always wanted to- or at least like he had wanted to for the past year. Slow and searching, struggling to find just the right angle where they would fit together. And Cas kissed back, just as slow, following Dean’s like he was made to. 

And Dean was happy to lead, palm of one hand pressed to the side of Cas’ throat, feeling his heart beat erratic as he parted his lips with a soft gasp- letting Dean lick his way into his mouth. He was unhurried. It was just the two of them and they had hours left before anyone came looking for them. And if no one came… well, at least he wouldn’t leave this world wanting.

He kissed Cas’ lips, his cheeks, rocking against him as slow and restless as the tide. He pressed Cas against the wall, molding their bodies together. Every muscle, every sharp plane of his body met by corresponding angles and roughness. His hands traveled down Cas’ sides, to his hips, hesitating, not sure how much permission he had. He pressed his forehead to Cas’, trying to remember how to form words enough to ask.

They stayed like that for too long, lips brushing with every little movement- and Cas was kissing Dean between heartbeats. Trading Dean for oxygen like a drowning man struggling to breathe.

Despite his actions to the contrary, Dean wasn’t the kind of guy who liked to fool around in the dark. A little light to see by went a long way in letting you know if the other person was into it. A simple look on someone’s face could speak more than a thousand words. It could give you direction. Give you unspoken consent. 

All Dean had were those slow, open mouthed kisses which were more likely to be his death than his salvation. 

He ran a thumb along the top of Cas’ pants, debating if untucking that stupid button up shirt so he could touch skin would be some kind of ‘point of no return’. 

Making out- fine. 

Grinding against each other like horny teenagers-  _perfectly_  fine.  

Undressing Cas, even if only by inches- enough to break Dean. 

The very idea made it hard to think.

It made a lot of things hard.

Cas sighed out long and low. “Dean, you’ve stopped.” 

Dean grunted softly in reply, squeezing Cas’ hips. 

“Are we through panicking then?” 

Dean let out a barking laugh, too loud for their little box. “I- I guess so.” 


	8. Chapter 8

Dean’s face was buried in Castiel’s neck, teeth and stubble cutting into his skin, and it had no right to feel as good as it did. 

This was a sin- he was sure of it.

It felt better than two sins rolled together.

He moaned softly as Dean pulled back, his neck feeling raw and horribly abandoned. Dean was pressing their faces together, his hands restless against Castiel’s hips, toying with his belt like he didn’t know how it worked.

They weren’t kissing anymore, and Castiel didn’t know why. He tried to fix the problem, brushing his lips against Dean’s in what he hopped was an encouraging manner, but the stubborn human was having none of it. 

“Dean, you’ve stopped.” 

The man smiled against the his mouth, tugging on his hips again in a way that was comfortably distracting.

But it wasn’t an answer and Castiel had no idea how to interpret it. If it wasn’t for the smile he could feel, he would almost think that Dean had gotten mad at him… or maybe he was mad at himself. Dean did that a lot. Castiel thought maybe he understood why this time. 

He had done something wrong and now they were done. He found he was always making mistakes around his friend. Stupid, stupid mistakes- like he wasn’t some kind of incredibly powerful, millennial creature from before the dawn of man. 

Not when he was with Dean. 

With Dean he was worse than a mess. He wanted to be a better person, but instead he seemed to worsen with every day.

“Are we through panicking then?” He asked softly, letting his head fall back against the wall, loosening his grip on Dean’s shirt.  It felt like admitting defeat.

Dean let out a startled laugh, too loud for how close they were and Castiel almost jumped out of his skin. 

“I- I guess so.” He let his hands fall from Castiel’s hip, hooking in recklessly on his pockets, finger tips brushing against his legs.

Dean wasn’t mad. 

Dean was laughing at him.

Castiel had definitely made some kind of mistake. He bit the inside of his cheek, trying to reign in his gasping breaths, struggling to gather his thoughts.

For some reason his stomach hurt.

“What do ya’ wanna do now, Cas?” Dean voice was upsettingly low, lost in his laughter and something much darker that made Castiel’s blood boil. 

He supposed that it was just part of the hunter’s gruff nature. He was always making off beat comments, laughing and joking when things got bad. They were stuck here until Sam came for them- if he came for them- and Castiel had managed to make their time together into some kind of joke. 

It was frustrating how bad he was at this sort of thing. 

Bad at anything that had to do with Dean.

And honestly, his laughter wasn’t helping anything other than to drive that point home.

“We can just wait quietly for Sam. Conserve what air we have.” They could just stand in silence and Castiel could go over every little part of the past few minutes, analyzing each detail to figure out where he went wrong. It had felt like it had been going so well up until now. Castiel’s body was still tingling, his thoughts clouded with heated memories too fresh to overlook.

“Or we could have sex on the floor.” Dean’s voice was still hoarse.

“I don’t see how that’s a funny joke, Dean.”

“I- I wasn’t joking.” But he laughed, and Castiel knew that meant that he was lying.

Castiel worried that he would never understand humor.

“We should try to conserve our air.” He tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice.

“You’re serious?” It wasn’t really a question, more of an accusation, Dean’s laughter dying in an instant.

“Yes.” 

He let his hands drop from Dean’s shirt and a gross second later Dean released him as well.

The darkness was overwhelming once the hunter stepped away, leaving Castiel in the corner. If it weren’t for Dean’s angry muttering he would have been able to embrace the illusion of being entirely alone. 

His stomach hurt a little more.

Maybe half an hour passed them by in silence. And Castiel was alone with his thoughts, because he dare not speak. He was too worried about what he might say.

He might beg Dean to come back, to take him in his arms again, and then where would they be?

Castiel had mostly come to terms with the fact that he was desperately in love with his best friend, but it still caught him off guard from time to time, how very far he’d fallen in every sense.

He wasn’t even sure he could be considered an Angel anymore. It seemed less and less like a species and more like a title that he no longer deserved.

“Cas.” Dean said the name in that perfect way that he always did. No one else could say it like he could and Castiel had to stifle a shiver. What a single word alone could do to him, when it came from that pair of lips… it broke over him like a wave and for a heartbeat he couldn’t breathe.

“Cas,” Dean said again after a subjective eternity. “You still there?”

“I’m still here.” He assured softly.

“Well, get over  _here_.”

Any other day, and Cas would have taken those two little steps to join his friend. Today he stayed where he was, holding up the corner of the mausoleum.

“Here, Cas.”

 _Stop saying my nam_ _e,_  he wanted to say, but his mouth had gone dry.

“Come on, you stubborn ass.” Dean could be so charming when he wanted to be.

“I’m fine where I am.” He was sure that there was nothing good for him in that corner.

Dean had other ideas, and with a remarkably well aimed grab in the darkness, Dean caught hold of his wrist. He pulled the Angel to the other side of the room, and then pulled him down until they were both sitting; their legs sprawled out haphazardly over the small floor space. 

Honestly, Castiel could have stopped it at any point- but Dean was touching him again and he found his body following along without asking for his permission.

 “I’ll keep my hands to myself this time.” Dean said softly, somehow ignoring the fact that he was still holding Castiel like a soft shackle round his wrist. “Just stay here with me, alright?” And Dean was whispering, talking for the first time at a volume appropriate for the hallowed ground upon which they were trapped.

“Alright.” He said after a moment of hesitation.

Of course Dean lied to him.

It shouldn’t have surprised Castiel- on account of the fact that Dean was always lying to someone about something. But it didn’t upset him this time like it usually would.

The hunter’s rough hand eventually released Castiel’s wrist in favor on holding his leg, which would have been odd if it didn’t feel so good. Fingers that Castiel knew to be scarred and bruised ran slowly along the inseam of his pants, flickering lazily from his knee towards a more interesting latitude, but never reaching anything too exciting.  Even still, it was enough to prickle the skin along Castiel’s arm and tighten his chest.

They stayed like that. Quiet, close, until the air in their box grew thick and hard to breathe. And if nothing else, Dean was somewhat right. Castiel didn’t think that this was necessarily a ‘stupid’ way to die, but it certainly was anticlimactic and incredibly boring- and the sentiment seemed about the same.

“So stupid.” Dean whispered like he could read minds, breaking the silence which had settled in with them like a third prisoner.

“Sam will be here soon.” And it felt odd to Castiel to be the one to believe in Sam. He never had before. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t like the younger Winchester, he was actually quite fond of the man, but up until this moment he had never exercised much hope or faith that anything good would ever come from him. 

“Yeah, but if he’s not, Cas…” Dean made a soft sound in the back of his throat. “I- I’ve never been good at this kind of thing.”

It got quiet again, the air was like a blanket and Castiel leaned into his friend until their shoulders brushed. The sweat on Dean’s arm was slick, the same overheated temperature as his skin and it was an odd feeling. Castiel leaned a little further, brushing his lips along Dean’s jaw. 

“I’m glad it was you that brought me up from hell.” Dean’s words rumbled through him and Castiel felt them more than heard them.

 _What a strange thing to say_. But it made him smile just the same. “I’m glad too.”


	9. Chapter 9

Dean ran the back of a hand over his mouth, wiping sweat from his upper lip. It was heating up in their little box and he found himself wondering how much time they had left. Cas had originally said a few hours- but what did an Angel know about calculating the air consumption of sealed tombs? 

He prayed that Sam would come looking for them soon, and it shouldn’t work because Dean had never had that kind of faith.

His hand stilled against Cas’ leg, fingernails catching on the seam. Dean had made such an ass of himself, really cocked it up- as Bobby would say. 

But if you can’t ask your friend to exchange bodily fluids with you on the floor of a mausoleum, who can you ask? 

Dean just hadn’t expected Cas to turn him down so spectacularly. 

It was those damn dreams. Cas had never said  _no_  to Dean’s sleeping mind and it had set him up with some obviously unrealistic expectations.

Lucky for Dean, Cas was as benevolent as anything could be, and he could forgive Dean enough to sit with him while they waited. 

And waited.

And waited.

He trailed his fingers back towards Cas’ knee, realizing just how high his touch had wandered. It wasn’t really his fault. Cas’ leg was practically draped over his, and it wasn’t an invitation that he could properly ignore- even if he knew that he should really try a bit harder. Despite the weirdly mixed signals he had been giving Dean, it was obvious that this was as far as he was going to get.

Such a shame.

He closed his eyes. Unsure why he had had them open in the first place. There wasn’t a damned thing to see in the darkness. He could touch the door from where he sat. One hand on flesh, one on stone, and neither were of any help to him.

“So stupid.” He muttered to himself. Stupid for getting himself into situations like this. Dean’s life was an endless stream of situations just like this one.

“Sam will be here soon.” Cas answered gently like he had all the faith in the world. Very few people who knew Sam as well as Cas did talked about him like that. Even Dean had his doubts about his brother sometimes- but Cas just talked like he knew. He knew that Sam would be there any moment.

Dean almost kissed him on principle. 

And there were many reasons to kiss Cas that Dean had had to fight down over the past year. 

But all those close calls had all been for deep physical reasons. Unexpectedly close proximity to each other- the rough tear of Cas’ voice when he said Dean’s name- the very serious eye sex that they had when they thought Sam wasn’t looking- that confused little head tilt- the way that Cas always smelled like somewhere else, somewhere earthen and clean, and it made Dean want to breath him in and guess at where he had been. 

This was the first time he had wanted to lick his way into that downturned mouth for … sentimental reasons.

It took him off guard, and Dean’s chest ached suddenly.

He needed to say something to Cas before the silence took them again, before too much time had passed and the words dried up in his mouth. 

 “Yeah, but if he’s not, Cas…” Dean bit his tongue, because saying what he was about to choke on would ruin him. He tried again, but nothing at all came out. 

“I- I’ve never been good at this kind of thing.” He admitted softly like it was an acceptable excuse.

Cas leaned into him until their shoulders touched, his long fingered hand slowly trailing over Dean’s skin, up his arm, raising goose bumps despite the heat. His fingers slipped beneath Dean’s sleeve, over the slick scar that he had put there almost two years ago.

Cas had never touched Dean there. Hell, he had never really touched Dean before this afternoon. 

He didn’t seem particularly aware that he was doing it now.  At least that was what Dean assumed up until he felt Cas’ lips brush along his jaw, right beneath his ear.

The words that Dean had wanted to say had died the moment that Cas’ fingers found the scar. That kiss sent them through some post mortem twitching. 

He turned his face to Cas’ hair, breathing him in, kissing him as slow as a wet week. “I’m glad it was you that brought me up from hell.” 

Cas smiled against his cheek, breath hitching. “I’m glad too.”

Dean’s free hand, the one that wasn’t digging trenches into Cas’ thigh, found a comfortable home on the back of the Angel’s head, tilting him up so that he could clumsily press their mouth together. If he could have seen a damn thing he wouldn’t have missed the first two times, but then again, maybe he still would have. Nerves were funny like that.

But Cas didn’t follow his lead this time.

He dug his fingers into Dean’s scar and pulled back at the same time, turning his face away, gasping softly. “Dean, don’t.” 

And though it took every ounce of chivalry he had, Dean didn’t. 

Which was for the best really. 

Before the sting of rejection could decay into regret, the stone beside him shifted for the first time in hours, and Sam’s voice came from what sounded like another lifetime, distorted and muffled. He was calling his brother’s name like he used to when they were kids and Dean was gloriously winning at hide and seek.

 In a hot second Dean was scrambling to his feet, Castiel all but forgotten at the promise of salvation.

“Dean?” Sam grunted and pushed against the heavy stone door which must have weighed a few hundred pounds. “Damn it, if you’re in there say something.”

“We’re fucking in here, you beautiful son of a bitch.” He wanted to weep, but he felt like he had already sweated out every last drop of moisture his body had.

He dug his fingers against the widening crack of the door, scraping his nails raw. His body was exhausted from the heat and lack of air and he wasn’t much help to his brother, despite his best intentions.

Stone ground against stone, the door opening as slow as a grudge despite Sam struggling with it.

A crack of sunlight crashed in, accompanied with a wave of hot, muggy air that was just about the sweetest thing that Dean had ever tasted. 

Cas’ hand came up, catching the edge of the door and he pulled it open in one easy movement, whatever spell broken now that the door had been jarred.

Sam was the first thing Dean saw, and after hours of pitch black, looking up at his baby brother, limed in the light of the setting sun, it was almost painful. He staggered out, coughing on the fresh air, clapping his brother into a tight hug.

“What took you so long?”

Sam hugged back awkwardly, patting his back once before holding his arms out, waiting for Dean to detach. “Jesus, Dean. You’re a mess.” He sounded more amused than worried, and Dean knew that he couldn’t look that bad if Sam was laughing about it. “How long were you in there?”

“Too damn long.” He let go of his brother, grinning, squinting against the painful sun light.

“How did you manage to lock yourself in there?”

“It’s go no handles and some jackass sealed it against Angels.” He looked back into the mausoleum, wanting to share a grin with Cas, but he was gone. “Cas?”

Sam frowned, peering around Dean to look into the inky blackness. “Was he in there with you?”

“Cas?!” Dean yelled up at the sky.

“What were you guys doing in there?” Sam sounded accusatory.

Dean coughed softly before yelling again, ignoring his brother. “Cas!” 

“Calm down, Dean. What, are you trying to do- summon every Cas in a fifty mile radius?”

“Shut up, Sammy.” Dean felt heat rising to his throat and cheeks. He didn’t know why he had been shouting. He didn’t know what was wrong with him- he just knew he needed Cas and Cas was gone.

“You ok, Dean?” Sam touched his shoulder, incidentally his fingers fitting right where Cas’ had been only minutes ago.

And Dean danced away from his brother, trying to keep whatever he was feeling from showing on his face. “Yeah.” He wiped a hand over his mouth, hoping that Sam wasn’t reading his every movement like he always did. “Yeah. I’m awesome.”

Sam said nothing, he just stood there like a tree, impassive, expressionless, watching Dean- and Dean knew that Sam knew.

“Someone’s been writing Angel proofing on the buildings around here.” He said roughly. “You wanna’ look into that or just stand around staring at me?”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, I havn't read over this story, or even thought about it in YEARS, so this may or may not be the only chapter from Sam's pov??!? Can't remember, but I sort of hope that there are more. It's such a strange adventure rereading something that you only remotely remember writing.

The drive into Aurora hadn’t been particularly exciting- but then again, riding in the back of an ambulance with a dead kid sort of predetermined the ambient mood. This was sort of the opposite of how he'd wanted to spend today. It’s not that he wasn’t excited to have a lead in the case… but at the same time, this was really not the kind of lead that he ever wanted to have.

Murder bothered him on fundamental level. 

No one had the right to take life away someone else- and yes, Sam was painfully aware of what a glaring hypocrite that made him. 

But a little girl?

He was sick just thinking about it.

The autopsy was hard to watch, and he hated Dean a little for volunteering him to oversee it. Yes, it was good that one of them went, kept an eye out for the kind of thing that only  _they_  might notice being grossly out of place. But it could have been Dean. 

It could have been both of them in the back of the ambulance. 

But he knew better than to argue with Dean where Castiel was involved. 

If his brother was going to do a graveyard tour with the Angel, it was best that Sam kept clear. 

He didn’t have anything particularly useful to add to that odd little development- at least he didn’t have anything useful that Dean wanted to hear.

So Sam took the half hour ride to Aurora and watched police officers and the coroner fingerprint and dissect a little girl not even old enough to wear makeup. He stood near the back corner of the room, letting the glorified mortician do her job, letting two very firm thoughts settle heavily in his gut. The first being that that he wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight- the second, that as soon as they found out who did this (and they  _would_ ) Sam was going to kill them. It was the only consolation in all of this, that there would be one less monster in the world.

“The tissue has been damaged by exposure to this heat-“ the coroner, Alice Something-or-other, glanced over her shoulder at Sam. “But it looks like signs of frost bite on what’s left of her feet and hands.”

Sam grunted softly and came closer, looking at the soft bruising in the empty nail beds like he analyzed this kind of thing for a living and could see what Alice saw perfectly.

“The body must have been kept in a cold environment for at least a few hours before her death.” Her voice was a little muffled behind her little surgical mask, but she didn’t sound particularly happy. “Cold exposure might actually be the cause of death.”

Hypothermia? Sam hadn’t really expected such a mundane form of murder. Dean might be right about this one being just a human. A crazy one, but human was human. 

Then again, in this heat wave someone dying of frostbite was anything other than mundane and it kept the supernatural avenue of their psycho killer wide open. It didn’t make him feel any better. He wasn’t sure why he thought that it would.

“So, we’re looking for someone with a large freezer maybe?” Sam looked very firmly at the coroner, she wasn’t much more than a pair of eyes behind goggles, a surgical mask and an attractive, matching hair net… but she was so much easier to focus on than the little girl.

“You’re looking for whatever you feel like looking for, mister FBI. I’m just telling you what I see.” She reached out with a gloved hand, moving the green vanity sheet down from the kid’s chest, pointing with a surprisingly steady finger at three small burns along the arch of her tiny ribs, little dots aligned like the corners of a triangle. “She’s got two more on her back. One over the lumbar, the other over her left kidney.”

Sam looked over the coroner’s head (not with any difficulty as she didn’t even come up to his shoulder), down at the burns. He had seen similar before, but they looked off somehow. “Cattle prod?”  The words felt like a sickness. He was going to need a drink tonight. Maybe four.

“Could be. I’ll run some tests- include the pictures I took in her file.” Alice moved the cloth back into place, smoothing it gently over the marks she had already made, the Y shaped incision she had carefully stapled closed. The metal prongs looked heavy and pale against the girl's skin- railroad tracks running over the ruined dips and curves of her body. 

 Sam took a careful step backwards, settling into his corner where he couldn’t see things so well. It gave him a chance to catch his breath, feeling a little light headed from the chemical smell of the little room.

He hated autopsy rooms.

He hated this whole thing.

Later, once the kid was carefully tucked into the wall cabinet, its little door latched, and the two of them were out in the safety of the hall, Alice asked if he wanted to get a drink.

Under other circumstances, he would have said no. He was on a case, had to get back to his 'partner', he could think of at least a handful of other excuses- but Alice had pulled off her mask and hairnet, tossing them into a red bio-bin beside the door. 

She looked up at Sam, long dark hair pulled back from her pale face, delicate lips and eyes that looked grey and tired. She wasn’t beautiful in the traditional sense- but she wasn’t bad either. She looked like someone’s older sister who you would sneak covert looks at from time to time, but knew to leave alone because she wasn’t interested in dealing with your bullshit. And maybe that was a little too specific- but Sam had spent a fair amount of his formative years in highschool watching Dean getting the side eye from girls like Alice. 

She wasn’t hitting on Sam. She just needed a drink and wanted company.

Sam felt the same way.

He didn’t have a car (having ridden up in the ambulance), so Alice drove them to a local bar that made its own micro brew. It came in an amber bottle with a blue label and it tasted like honey, hops, and summer nights. They both nursed their bottles and easily spoke of anything that didn’t have to do with work or themselves. They settled on how the Chicago Blackhawks had done last season- and Sam knew little to nothing about hockey, but that didn’t seem to matter much.

Out of the subbasement of the hospital, Alice actually had a smile, it was tired like her eyes, but it was honest and Sam liked it. He found himself smiling back easily, despite the guilt he felt over it. 

And Dean was always telling him that they’re allowed to be happy- but Sam wasn't sure that was right. Hunting was an unholy business, cheerless and lonely.

“Your partner going to meet you up here or are they back in Millington?” She didn’t have to speak loud to be heard over the late afternoon crowd. Most people were still at work or having dinner and the two of them had the bar mostly to themselves other than a handful of people clustered at the back tables.

“Partner?” For a moment Sam didn’t understand, and that alone was a testament to his state of mind.

“I’ve never seen an FBI agent by themselves. You’ve got to have a Mulder around somewhere.” She took a sip of her beer, hiding a little smile.

Why was Sam always Scully? “He was going over the first crime scenes.” Sam hoped he was right. He didn’t like to think what kind of trouble his brother would be getting up to if him and Cas had finished going through the cemetery again… but at the same time, it had been about four hours. They should be well and done by now.

“You want a ride back?” She was pulling out her wallet, setting a folded five under her empty bottle. “I live south of Millington.”

“I didn’t know there was anything south of Millington.” Sam said with a wry smile, laying out some money of his own.

Alice took her keys out, standing- and she was about Sam’s height while he still sat on his little wooden chair. 

“You good to drive?” He stood too, grinning as her gaze followed him all the way up.

“It was one beer.” She rolled her eyes, walking with him back to her sensible sedan. 

Sam wanted to make a comment about how one beer to a normal sized person and one beer to someone as small as she was, was not the same thing- but he was a little worried that she would revoke the offer of a ride and he would have to call a cab or something. He wisely did not tease the tiny woman and let her drive him the half hour back to the little town that sprawled over a dusty mile of farm land and weeds. 

They talked about travel, a topic that he knew so much better he knew hockey- and was more than able to hold his own. Alice seemed mildly surprised that he had been to so many places, and Sam quickly excused it away with ‘work’ and she nodded gravely like that explained everything. 

They pulled through Millington, rolling through a Stop sign on the edge of town. Down the cross street Sam could see the little cemetery and the Impala perched outside, black as death itself. 

“Hold up.” He slapped at the dash board and Alice slammed on the car’s breaks, sending up a grey dust cloud behind them. 

“It’s more of an advisory Stop sign than a real one.” She grumbled looking over at him. 

Sam blinked at her, glancing at the big red sign outside his window. 

“Can the FBI give traffic tickets?”

“What? No.” He kind of laughed, but it sounded weak to his ears. It had been over five hours now and Dean was still in the cemetery? Some kind of bad feeling crawled from the corner of his mind and he did his best to hide it. “No.” He repeated. “I- my partner’s out at the cemetery still. You can just drop me off here.”

She looked down the road at the only other car within eyesight of them. “I think I picked the wrong line of work, if they’re dolling out monster like that.” She smiled up at him, a hint of teeth. “Maybe I should look into getting a job with the Bureau.” She flipped the car into park and dug in the little compartment between the seats coming up with a pen and a slightly bent business card. “Here’s the office number. Call me tomorrow and I’ll let you know if I’ve found anything about our little Jane Doe.” She instructed, handing over the card. “And here’s  _my_  number. Call me this weekend if you’re still in town and I’ll let you know if you can buy me a drink.”

Sam took the card and couldn’t help but smile. Dean was usually the one getting girl’s numbers- but Dean wasn’t here and without much hesitation Sam decided that he would take her up on the offer. It wasn’t one he got nearly as often as he should.

His fingers brushed against hers as he took the card, lingering for a moment longer than what was polite before he tucked the card into a pocked and unbuckled his seatbelt. 

“Tomorrow.” She said softly, shifting back into drive as Sam climbed out of her unreasonably sized car, his legs only slightly cramped. 

“Tomorrow.” He agreed before closing the door. He could feel her eyes on him as he jogged across the street towards the Impala. Then she drove off in a drone of tires against grit and gravel and Sam was alone.

Which wasn’t right, because Dean should be here.

The car was here.

The cemetery was small enough that Sam could practically see the whole thing from the road- and it was positively empty of anyone above ground. He sucked on his lip, already sweating through his shirt in the heat that didn’t seem to care that the sun was setting and it was time to lay off for a bit.

“Dean?” He called out experimentally. When he got no answer he pulled out his phone. 

It rang and rang and Sam finally got his brother’s voice mail, his gruff ‘You know what to do” followed by a long beep, and Sam sighed down the line.

“Hey, Dean… where are you? I’m at the car and you’re…call me back.” He shoved the phone back into a pocked and peeked into the windows of the car. She looked just fine.

Sam walked the grounds. They looked fine too. There weren’t any signs of struggle, no odd smells. No nothing.

There should have been  _something_.

The great nothingness stoked the discomfort in the back of his mind. “Dean?”

He felt like an idiot standing in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by headstones, calling for his brother. It didn’t stop him from doing it. He just felt like an idiot while he did.

“DEAN!” He strained his voice, hearing it carry on the wind. Worry was turning to panic. Something was wrong.

On the edge of the property stood three stone mausoleums, so innocent and unassuming he felt almost obligated to ignore them. The one to the left had the grass trampled down in front of it and dusty markings on the door. As Sam got closer they looked less like smears of pale dirt and more like hastily drawn chalk symbols.

Sam frowned and pushed against the door experimentally. It didn’t budge.

“Dean?” He called again, his throat feeling a bit raw by now. He pushed on the door once more, it shifted minutely under his shoulder, and this kind of excursion in this kind of heat might just kill him. “Damn it, if you’re in there say something.”

And Dean’s voice came from a world away. “We’re fucking in here you beautiful son of a bitch.” 

Sam was grinning, relief coursing through him. He dug his heels into the dry grass and pushed for all he was worth against the door which felt like it weighed a ton. It shifted a little more, but not like it was giving under his efforts, more like it was mocking them.

Stone ground against stone, the door opening as slow as a grudge and Sam was swearing a blue streak under his breath.

A whiff of stale air met him and then the door flew inward and Sam staggered back as Dean staggered out- bow legged and glistening with sweat. His cheeks were red, his eyes fever bright, his hair a dark mess.

He threw his arms around Sam, grinning like a maniac, and Sam couldn’t help but hug back, then he grimaced, his forearms sticking to Dean’s wet shirt. Gross was an understatement.

“What took you so long?” Dean was still squeezing him, tight enough that it was a little hard to breathe.

“Jesus, Dean. You’re a mess. How long were you in there?”

“Too damn long.” Dean finally let go, standing there, grinning up at him, eyes almost shut against the light of the setting sun.

Sam looked at him for a heartbeat, then started laughing. He had been so worried and now… now. “How did you manage to lock yourself in there?”

Dean was laughing too. “It’s go no handles and some jackass sealed it against Angels.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “Cas?”

Sam’s good humor left in a rush. “Was he in there with you?” Oh god, that was like locking a very hungry, but very stubbornly dieting kid in a candy shop. 

Sam had left them alone for over five hours, in an enclosed space- and Dean was as stubborn and strong willed as they came, but even he had a breaking point. 

Ever since the first time Sam saw the two of them together, he knew that there was  _something_  going on- something that apparently neither his brother or the Angel could see. Dean always looked at Cas like he was trying to figure out what flavor the Angel would be, and Cas watched Dean… well, in ways that weren’t really appropriate for public places. 

He had no idea how both of them managed to remain oblivious to the huge, pulsing, mutual man-crush that they shared- but Sam was fine to stay out of the way of it. When it came to his feelings, Dean was willfully mute. 

Sam had only been dumb enough to bring it up once- because once he had the misfortune to be woken up to Dean moaning Cas’ name in his sleep. Due to the close confines of the Impala's seats, it had been impossible to ignore the fact that Dean was rubbing himself off through his jeans. Sam only really had two options, pretend it wasn’t happening, or wake Dean up and make him stop.

And there had been no way that Sam could have pretended that it wasn’t happening.

Sam waking him up had somehow ended in a fist fight and a dislocated shoulder.

And so Sam hadn’t brought it back up since then, because if Dean wanted to pretend that he wasn’t having very loud, very wet dreams about their friend, then that was Dean’s business.

“Cas?!” Dean yelled up at the sky.

“What were you guys doing in there?” Sam wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but at the same time, the sudden hunch of Dean’s shoulders let him know that the two of them hadn’t just sat quietly telling camp stories, waiting for Sam to show up.

Other than his suddenly stiff posture, Dean showed no signs of hearing the question. “Cas!” There was an odd timber to his voice, anger mixed with something more base.  

“Calm down, Dean. What, are you trying to do- summon every Cas in a fifty mile radius?”

Dean turned to him, bearing his teeth for a moment. “Shut up, Sammy.” And then he looked like he was coming back to himself, and he had the decency to look apologetic and even a little embarrassed.

“You ok, Dean?” Sam reached out to touch his brother, but Dean jerked away like he had been burnt.

“Yeah.” His hands moved, suddenly nervous, wiping over his face. “Yeah. I’m awesome.”

If there was one thing that Sam knew, better than anything else, better than himself, it was his brother. Dean lied as easily as some men breathe- but he could never lie to Sam. This is not to say that he hadn’t tried, lord knew that Dean tried, but Sam had always seen through it. Always would. 

And Dean was so far from ok right now, it wasn’t even funny.

Something had happened in that little stone box that had set Dean on edge and sent Cas running in the opposite direction.

Sam didn’t want to speculate on what could have done that.

The ‘maybes and ‘probablies’ weren’t the kind of daydreams that Sam liked to have, at least not about his big brother.

“Someone’s been writing Angel proofing on the buildings around here.” Dean said in his gruffest of voices. “You wanna’ look into that or just stand around staring at me?”

Sam nodded slowly. “Yeah- seems like a good place to start.”

“Just don’t go inside,” Dean warned sagely, “the damn thing closed itself on us when we went in.”

And that sure seemed to Sam like a good sign of a bad thing- the first hint of anything they'd had on this case.

There were similar markings on the other two crypts, mostly washed away by the sprinklers, and Sam did his best to copy them down in quick scribbles on a napkin he had jammed in a pocket. There were more symbols on the roof of the buildings, or so said Dean from his perch up onto of one. 

Sam craned his neck to look up at Dean, ready to help him back down in the same manner that he helped him up. “But why?” Even not knowing what they said, why would someone return to the crime scene and write all over some mausoleums?  

“Hell if I know.” Dean called down before swinging his legs over the edge.

“So where does this get us?”

“Hell if I know that either.” He jumped down with  _whuff_  on impact, knees buckling a little.

Sam wanted to lecture him, because Dean was going to break an ankle or something doing stupid things like that- but Sam kept his big mouth shut and started walking towards the Impala. “Let’s come back tomorrow when the sun’s up.”

Sam needed to eat something, shower and drink until things got a little less complicated.

He got two out of three.

The water in their room was out, so him and Dean sat on their beds across from each other, sharing a bottle of Jim Beam and a large pizza that had to have at least six different kinds of meat on it. Dean had ordered the monstrosity, and honestly seemed fairly pleased with his decision- Sam less so, but he ate anyways because he couldn’t remember if he had eaten anything since breakfast and he was starving.

He took a long draw on the whisky, feeling it burn all the way down, making his eyes water. “You wanna give Cas a call, see if he’s got any ideas about those?” He nodded to the napkin he had scribbled all over, sitting beside his open laptop which had been abandoned when the pizza arrived. 

There hadn’t been any translations he could find in any of his references material- all he knew was that it looked vaguely like some of the enochian he had seen once or twice. But it wasn’t like there was an Angel to English dictionary out there.

They had Cas though- which was basically the same thing.

Dean got a little color high on his cheeks and stuffed a rather large bite of pizza in his mouth, mumbling around it incoherently.

His big brother was blushing, and Sam had never seen anything like it. He didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything- just held out the bottle of whisky and ignored any implications there might have been.

Dean strangled the bottle before taking a short swallow. “I’ll call him tomorrow.”

Sam wanted to argue, that they didn’t need to waste any more time, but Dean was still blushing and Sam still didn’t know what to say to him.


	11. Chapter 11

“You wanna give Cas a call, see if he’s got any ideas about those?”

Dean winced at the suggestion, feeling heat rise in his neck and cheeks. Sam could be a real son of a bitch when he wanted to be. Dean loved his brother, but it didn’t stop him from entertaining ideas of smacking him upside the head on a regular basis. 

He took another bite of pizza instead- keeping his mouth busy so he wouldn’t say anything too incriminating. 

Chewing slowly gave him time enough to think. 

God, but he needed a shower. His skin was gritty with salt and he could still taste Cas on the back of his tongue no matter how many slices of pizza he shoved down. 

He was no good like this.

Right now he would actually qualify himself as a mess.

It was why he had wanted to go back to the motel for the night. Sure, they had a lead… kind of- but all Dean could manage to think about was the fact that he had kissed his friend- and not just  _a friend_ , but his  _best_  friend… if he looked at it the right way, his  _only_  friend. And Cas bolting like a bat out of hell the first second that he could, well… Dean had really screwed the pooch on this one, as if he had any doubts.

He took the bottle of whisky when Sam offered it to him and took a rough swallow, closing his eyes and collecting what he could of his thoughts. 

“I’ll call him tomorrow.” He heard himself whisper- and maybe by tomorrow he would be able to think about Cas without remembering the feel of his lips, or the heat from his fingers… the way his hips brushed against Dean’s with those slow, almost unconscious movements that-

Dean took another drink. Slower. Taking the edge off his thoughts.

“You know what? Screw consciousness. I’m going to sleep.” He set the bottle down on the side table with a firm  _thunk_.

Sam gave him a wry little smile before snagging one more slice of pizza and retreating to his laptop.

Shirt followed by jeans fell to the floor and Dean practically threw himself back onto the little motel bed, the springs protesting quietly. Despite his better efforts, half an hour later he was still wide awake, listening to the soft pattering of Sam’s fingers against his keyboard and the distracted tapping of his foot.

“You wanna keep it down over there?” He rolled onto his side, glairing as Sam glanced up from his work.

And his brother got one of those little smiles of his, the kind that never left his eyes, and Dean knew he was thinking things that he was smart enough not to say.

“It’s like nine o’clock, Dean.” Which in Sam-ish meant ‘it’s too early to be quiet, so just deal with it.’

“Dude, I almost died today.” Which translated roughly to ‘I don’t feel good, so you have to be nice to me.’

With some kind of deep, self-sacrificing sigh, Sam got out his head phones and the typing stopped. He was probably watching a movie or something. It didn’t matter so much to Dean, he only cared about the quiet.

The quiet so that he could be alone with his very clear memories of that afternoon- and what was he thinking? This was so much worse. He pulled the pillow over his head and grumbled to himself.

No matter what choices Dean could have made back in that tomb, he knew that he could have handled it so much better than he did. Or maybe not. There was no way to know now. 

And that 'maybe' decayed to guilt, settling like a lead weight in his stomach. And perhaps it was too little too late, but Dean found that where Cas was involved, he couldn’t help himself. Perhaps he was just a little sentimental. People had called him worse things.

“Cas,” He breathed, not even going so far as to whisper. He was almost positive that the Angel could hear him anyways, so what did it matter. “I’m crap at praying and worse at apologizing. I’m sorry I… I’m just sorry, dude.” 

And he wasn’t really sorry, not for kissing Cas at least. Oh hells no, he wasn’t sorry for that- Cas had started it in the first place, so the hunter wouldn’t be taking any blame for that. 

Dean was just sorry that he had messed it up somehow and scared the Angel off. He just took it too far too fast, but then again, Dean had never had any real sense of proportion.

He just hoped that Cas understood and forgave him.

Cas had always been good at forgiving, so maybe Dean would get lucky.

Good thoughts to fall asleep too.


	12. Chapter 12

Certainly better thoughts than what Dean woke to. Because Castiel  _had_  heard the apology, and with no respect for ‘good timing’ he deemed it proper to come visit his friend later that evening, sometime in the dark hours after the brothers were both deeply asleep.

He settled into the room, looking from one still bed to the other. Even in the dark, the Angel could pick Dean out easily, laying sprawled over the top of his blanket, the ridge of his spine and one shoulder catching the wan light coming in through the thin curtains.

And Castiel wasn’t sure why Dean was practically naked, nor was he entirely sure why it made his mouth dry. He watched as Dean twitched slightly in his sleep, arm jerking just a fraction, toes curling. He was obviously in the midst of a dream- though Castiel had never really gotten the hang of that kind of thing. He had never had to sleep, and so he had never had a dream of his own- but he had visited a few over the years. As far as he could tell they were bits of imagination that no one had any real control over. They had always seemed like they would be more trouble than they were worth to Castiel… but he supposed if he were human and had them every night than maybe he would grow used to them.

Dean grunted softly, pulling his pillow tightly down over his head for a moment before relaxing deeper into his dream. 

Castiel frowned and got closer to the bed, worrying that his friend might be having a bad dream. Which made sense when he thought about it. They hadn’t left on the best of terms, and Dean had obviously still been upset before going to sleep. He wouldn’t have apologized to Castiel otherwise.

Without much thought to the kind of trouble that he was inviting himself into, Castiel sat himself down beside his sleeping friend and gently touched his arm. It wasn’t necessary to have physical contact for the Angel to enter into someone’s dream- it didn’t make it any easier. Castiel just wanted to touch Dean again. His skin was warm, fever hot beneath his finger tips

It easily drew up memories of that afternoon and for a moment he felt dizzy, his chest tightening. He could ignore it. It wouldn’t be the first time his body did strange things that he couldn’t understand or control. He was an Angel, but there were still times when his vessel seemed to have ideas of its own.

He closed his eyes, shutting out the odd sensations as best he could, focusing in on the solid feel of Dean beneath his hand. He entered Dean’s dream with a plan. The two of them would talk, he would tell his friend that he accepted the apology, and then nicely ask if his help was still needed on the hunt that seemed to be giving them trouble. 

At least, that had been his plan. 

He found Dean’s dream with no problem. It was a ‘loud’ dream that Castiel walked into, vivid colors and sounds… and every last one of Castiel’s better intentions vanished on a startled gasp that he had no control over. 

Dean’s dream seemed to be in an old room, wooden floors and white walls. A large bay window filled with stars was the only light in the room, but it was enough to easily see the bed. And Castiel felt heat rising in his chest and face as he stood numbly watching that bed. It was the second, maybe third time that he had ever felt heat like that before, as more than just a cursory awareness of his surroundings and instead something deep in his blood, driven through him by his suddenly pounding heart.

There was Dean, sprawled on his back, one knee hitched up, his hands shaking, holding the very pale thighs of the dark haired man who was straddling his hips. The two of them moved together, moaning and arching against each other, whispering blasphemies and promises just as easily.

Even if Castiel had never spent much time watching this sort of thing, he certainly knew intercourse when he saw it.

His face grew warmer, his thoughts more confusing, and as the stranger who was ridding Dean like he owned him gasped out the hunter’s name, Castiel felt a new feeling. Anger bubbled inside of him. He instantly disliked the man that Dean’s imagination had created. That man had no right to be there, no right to be touching Dean, even if only in a dream.

“Dean-“ the man said again, his voice rough as sin. “Keep it down. You- uhn-  you’re going to wake someone.” He couldn’t seem to catch his breath as he ground his hips down into Dean and the hunter moaned loudly in response.

“Fuckin’ tease.” Dean was panting, grinning, his eyes as bright as bonfires. “If you go any slower you’re gunna kill me, Cas.”

A shiver ran up Castiel at the sound of his name, at the way that Dean said it, breathless and ruined. A horrible thought occurred to the Angel and he looked more closely at the man astride his friend.

Was that… was that what  _he_  looked like? Naked as he was, it was difficult to tell. He had never spent much time, if none at all, looking at his own face- it was almost impossible to tell. But that man, Dean had called him Cas- and Castiel was almost positive that he was the only one who Dean called by that name.

That meant…

That mean… oh.

Dean was having a dream where Castiel was already present, accounted for, and quite occupied.

Maybe Dean hadn’t been teasing him back in the mausoleum when he had suggested that they… 

Or  _maybe_  he  _had_  been joking, but saying it out loud had planted the idea and then after he returned to his motel the idea had still been tumbling around in his thoughts and when he went to sleep- and then-

Dean had sat up so he could kiss the dream-Castiel… and he seemed determined to do a thorough job of it… or maybe he was going for some kind of record- how should Castiel know?

All he knew was that Dean was growling odd lost little words into the kisses and dream-Castiel was panting loudly, his shallow thrusts becoming erratic. 

Castiel made to leave, to flee the dream. He would return to the motel tomorrow morning and hopefully be able to pretend that he had never witnessed what he was- for surly this was not something that he was meant to see. 

He put the back of a hand to his mouth trying to stifle the odd little noise he felt crawling up his throat. His whole body felt tight and weak, and he needed to leave. Now.

This was definitely not something that he was supposed to be observing. This was something private. 

Dean wouldn’t want him to see this- Castiel wasn’t sure that he himself wanted to be seeing this. 

He knew that these were not images that he would soon shake off.

How was he supposed to know that his friend - that he could- could imagine Castiel this way?

It was… it was indecent is what it was.

But he must have made a noise, something involuntary and wholly damming, because when Dean said his name again it was less of a noise of passion and much closer to something like horror.

Dean was looking over the shoulder of dream-Castiel and straight into the eyes of real flesh and bone and angelic grace-Castiel.

And the Angel was drowning in those eyes. He couldn’t move, not even to save himself.

“Son of a bitch.” Dean was breathing too fast, something like panic on his face, overriding the murky lust that had been clouding his gaze moments before. “Dammn it, Cas. How long have you been here?”

The dream was already falling apart around them. Dream-Castel was gone like he had never been. The room in which real-Castiel stood lessened in detail, unfocused around the edges, the sun replacing the stars outside in the sudden confusion. Dean was still on the bed, a poor, innocent pillow held over his lap, hiding the more interesting parts of his nakedness.

Castiel felt ashamed that he would even think of Dean like that.

There was something very wrong with him.

He wished he knew how to fix it, or at the very least how to keep his eyes on Dean’s face and not to let them rove over the other man’s chest like other people would look at a map- following lines of old scars like you follow the line of a road. Dean was so beautiful, and Castiel found himself wondering if Dean knew.

Then he realized that he had been asked a question, and by the look on Dean’s face an answer was expected.

“Only a few moments.” He replied weakly.

 “Awesome.” The word broke in the middle and Dean cleared his throat. “Did- did you need something, Cas?”

“No.” He said quickly, edging away even further from the bed, and the Dean, and the naked.

Dean licked his upper lip, his gaze steady. “Then why are you here?” He smiled one of his little half smiles, the one that went straight to Castiel’s core. “Unless you get your jollies watching?”

“Watching?” He looked fixedly at Dean’s shoulder, which was a nice place safely between that smile and the thin trail of dark hair that so interestingly decorated the lower part of Dean’s stomach. “No. I wasn’t watching anything.” Castiel winced slightly, he had never been any good at lying. “I just… I heard you praying earlier.”

Dean’s cocky smile faded as he adjusted the pillow on his lap. “Right.” The word was stretched out much longer than normal. “The praying and the apologizing for earlier.” He spoke hesitantly, like he was making sure that they were talking about the same prayer.

“I thought it best that I forgive you.”

Dean laughed suddenly, like he had been startled. “That’s, heh, that’s decent of you. But, um- if it’s all the same, Cas- I’m gunna wake up now.” 

“I am in the motel with you.” Castiel said slowly, not sure if Dean wanted him there or not.

He watched as the muscles in Dean’s jaw worked. “Awesome.” He said again, but not in a way that sounded like he meant it. “You wanna go get a coffee or something?”

Castiel thought that Dean was mad at him, but… Dean was offering coffee? He didn’t care for the taste personally, but the idea of spending time alone with his friend was very appealing. “I would like that very much.”

Dean’s shoulders twitched and he looked at Castiel for a long moment, not saying a word. Then, very slowly, he got that smile again, a quirk of his lips that made Castiel feel all kinds of odd inside. 

“Alright, Cas. We can go get coffee. Just let me get some pants on.”


	13. Chapter 13

It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last either that Cas popped himself up right in the middle of one of Dean’s dreams. It was one of those things that he decidedly would never get used to. Dreams are supposed to be your own. Even if you don’t always have control over them, they are  _yours_. They’re your mind, they’re facets of yourself reflected back in some of the best and worst ways imaginable. Even the worst nightmare you have ever had is still  _yours_. It’s part of you. 

Along those lines, it was damned strange to have visitors.

Your mind is your sanctum- the last bastion you could hope to have.

There isn’t room for company to come over.

It was unnaturally jarring to have someone else there in your dreams- even though Cas always had the gentlest of touches, feather soft against Dean’s mind. It felt like someone breathing on the back of his neck, nerves tingling like a livewire.

It wasn’t the sort of presence that could go unnoticed- unless of course the dream he was in the midst of already had his whole body lit up like a circuit board, blood pounding, breath ragged to his ears.

Hot steamy sex dreams sort of didn’t leave a lot of room for extra sensory perception.

And Cas  _would_  walk himself into a dream like that, because he was one of the most uncomfortably awkward people to ever exist. But it all would have been far more embarrassing for Dean if the Angel had any sense of timing.

 He missed the part of the dream where Dean brought his  _boyfriend_  home to meet his parents, and the part when Dean got to sit around drinking beer with his brother and dad while Mary, Jess and Cas frosted cupcakes for the kids. And Cas missed the part where Dean stayed up late with his little nieces telling them scary stories before tucking them in. 

Lucky for Dean, Cas missed all those moments of domestic bliss that his mind made to torture him while he slept. Instead, Cas walked into Dean’s dreamscape right in the middle of the ‘keep it down so we don’t wake anyone’ sex part of the dream.

Which, to be honest, was far less embarrassing for Dean than the alternative.

It was in the middle of the best part of his dream, when Cas and he were going at it, hot and heavy- the Angel taking all of Dean into him, slow and rough. And Dean was half out of his mind with lust, whispering dirty things like ‘I love you’ into the other man’s neck as they moved together like they were made for this-

And then he heard a voice that didn’t belong- a startled gasp laden with shock and something half carnal, half broken. 

Cas was standing on the far side of Dean’s childhood room, in his crisp white shirt and crooked tie, looking as wide eyed and out of place as a vegan in a butcher shop. The dream started to unravel in an instant- and Dean mourned the loss.

“Son of a bitch.” He struggled to catch his breath, to focus on his friend without lustful intent long enough to get a coherent thought out. “Damn it, Cas. How long have you been here?”

Cas didn’t answer, he just kept watching Dean with that stunned expression on his face- like he had never seen a naked man before. And Dean felt only the smallest level of embarrassment, because this was his dream and he refused to feel awkward in his own mind. But Cas was staring a little too hard, obviously unable to do anything but.

Dean pulled a pillow into his lap, settling into the smallest semblance of modesty.

And if Cas was going to keep looking at him like that, he could at least buy Dean a drink first. The Angel had no shame. None at all.

Like he was struggling to the surface of his own thoughts, Cas swallowed roughly, gasping, then blinking and fighting with himself. “Only a few moments.” 

That voice. Oh, god, but it did bad things to Dean.  “Awesome.” The word broke and he cleared his throat, trying again. “Did- did you need something, Cas?”

“No.” Cas answered, a little breathless and too fast.

Dean licked his upper lip, his gaze steady. “Then why are you here?” He was almost positive that Cas hadn’t invaded the dream with the intent to watch Dean have sex with his doppelganger- but that’s what he did do, and now here they were, one of them naked as the day he was born, staring each other down and Cas couldn’t even seem to get a whole thought together. He just kept looking at Dean, his dark eyes wide and fever bright. His usually pale cheeks flushed. 

Arousal looked good on Cas. Dean wished it didn’t, because it would make it a hell of a lot easier to be the adult in this situation. Instead he felt himself smiling. “Unless you get your jollies watching?”

“Watching?” Cas seemed to settle on Dean’s shoulder, like he finally found a fixed point that would keep him safe. “No. I wasn’t watching anything.” He was like the little kid with chocolate smeared over his mouth swearing that he had been nowhere near the cookies when they went missing. “I just… I heard you praying earlier.”

Dean hadn’t heard more damning words spoken to him in years. He had just prayed to his friend, asking to be forgiven for propositioning him, and here he was, strung out and half gone, the heat of sex still churning in his gut. 

Some apology. 

His smile died. “Right.” It tasted like ash. “The praying and the apologizing for earlier.” If there was an award for worst friend ever, it would go to Dean. Hands down. No contest.

“I thought it best that I forgive you.” Cas said with some hesitation.

It was like a full pardon when he had been expecting the gallows and Dean found himself laughing with something close to relief. “That’s, heh, that’s decent of you. But, um- if it’s all the same, Cas- I’m gunna wake up now.” The longer he sat there naked the higher chance he had of making things worse. He knew himself well enough. Awake and dressed would be worlds closer to safety and miles further away from all the regrettable things he was going to say any moment.

“I am in the motel with you.” Cas said like a warning- and so much for a clean escape.

 “Awesome.” Stars and stones. What was he supposed to do when he woke up and was still on the bed and Cas was still looking at him with that avalanche of ruin? “You wanna go get a coffee or something?”

He didn’t mean to say it, it slipped out as half of a joke, but Cas suddenly lit up like Dean had offered him a pony instead of a drink.

 “I would like that very much.”

Dean rolled the idea around, getting a taste for it. He could behave himself over a cup of coffee.  Coffee was safe.

He found himself echoing the other man’s smile.  “Alright, Cas. We can go get coffee.  Just let me get some pants on.”

Waking up wasn’t as easy as pinching himself, but it wasn’t all that hard either. He closed his eyes to one dream and opened his eyes to… laying on a bed with Cas sitting beside him in a scenario that felt all too much like the dream he had just pulled himself from. This one a little darker and less naked than the last one- but the heat was sickening and his arousal was painfully pressed between him and the lumpy motel mattress. He supposed that this had to be real life then. Real life tended to be uncomfortable and score fairly high on the suck-o-meter.

“Hey, Cas.” His sleep rough voice grated against his throat like glass- but it made Cas kind of shift awkwardly and smile somewhere in the dark pits of his eyes.

“Hello, Dean.” His hand was on the hunter’s shoulder, near the nape of his neck, a cool and easy weight keeping him from rolling over. “I… am sorry to wake you. You seemed to be enjoying your dream.”

“Yeah, well…” he had absolutely nothing productive to say to that one. “You, uh, wanna let go, Cas?”

For a brief, breathless moment it seemed like Cas wasn’t going to, but he blinked some thought away and slowly released Dean. His fingers slid over the old burn scar he had left behind years ago and Dean couldn’t help but shudder, an odd noise curling up from his chest.

“It shouldn’t still hurt.” Cas looked apologetic, holding his hands before him uncertainly.

“It doesn’t. It just feels… it doesn’t hurt.” He carefully sat, keeping a knee bent up and setting his hands in his lap to help hide the fact that his body hadn’t quite gotten itself with the program yet.

“I… have never had a chance to look at it.” He certainly was looking at it now. “I didn’t know I would be leaving such a deep scar when I raised you up.”

Dean couldn’t help but smile. “Well worth the price of admission.” He assured, rolling his shoulder towards the Angel so he could get a better look at his handy work- no pun intended.

To be sure, it was fairly spectacular as scars go- it was certainly the most decorative one he owned. But a scar was still just a scar and he had more than his fair share. Cas looked at it like something more than just another wound though. He looked… possessive.

His long fingered hands twitched and for a moment his eyes met Dean’s and apparently that was asking permission, and Dean’s silence was taken as a yes. 

Cas’ hand fit perfectly over the burn, coming home to rest against Dean’s skin and it felt right somehow.

Dean closed his eyes and he wasn’t sure how that was supposed to help him, he only knew that he couldn’t sit there looking back at Cas. Not when they were this close. Not if Cas was going to hold him. 

It was just his shoulder, but Dean had needs that he really wasn’t getting met elsewhere. Apparently he was a  little over starved for touch, and if he made it to the other side of tonight he would get himself to a bar, find a leggy blonde and set things right.

Cas couldn’t have known what he was doing to his friend, of the unholy havoc he was reaping. And Dean did his best to salvage the situation before they had a repeat of that afternoon and he found himself alone,  _again_ , praying for forgiveness.

He swallowed down the first words that tried to escape, because they would have been less then helpful and he tried once more. “Uh, how ‘bout that cup of coffee?”

“I don’t care for the taste of coffee, Dean.” Cas spoke in the same way that he had been looking at Dean, possessive as hell, and maybe a little hungry. Like a stranger was using Cas’ voice and Dean’s eyes flew open- half expecting to see someone else sitting beside him, fondling his shoulder. But it was just Cas, his eyes as intense as always, his usual frown firmly in place. “I prefer the taste of you.”

“Come again?” Dean’s voice might have squeaked just a fraction- but it was only out of pure unadulterated confusion.

For what it was worth, Cas looked just as shocked, maybe more so. “I…” and that was it. The Angel didn’t seem to have anything other than that little noise.

As he could see it, Dean had about the same two options that had been presented to him hours ago- and, never one to learn from his mistakes he took the same course of action as last time. Variation was for suckers.

“Cas,” his throat felt dry, his shoulder was smoldering in a way that felt far better than it had any right to. “I’m gunna kiss you again.” It was this side of being a question, begging permission. “If that’s not something you want then you better let me the hell go.” 

The Angel didn’t move, so Dean did, dragging the distance between them, taking more time than he thought he had the strength to. Their lips met and Cas responded almost at once, groaning far more loudly and indecently than the situation called for, and Dean was lost in an instant.


	14. Chapter 14

The scar over Dean’s shoulder was still dark, still raised- it hadn’t really healed over the years. The slick flesh almost glinting wet in the pale light that managed to sneak past the curtains. Most of Dean looked wet though, sweat on his chest and neck. Castiel wanted to touch him. To feel the one scar on Dean that he had made. He had marked the human- even if only by accident, a proxy to pulling him out of hell, it was there just the same. It made heat curl in the Angel’s gut, pooling golden and caustic, burning deep in him.

His eyes met Dean’s, only for a heartbeat, and the hunter had this wild look to him. Castiel’s breath caught in his throat and that heat in him spread. Shaking, he reached out to the hunter, slid his hand over the scar, his fingers trembling. He knew he had no right to it- he knew it was pure hubris that he felt in the mark he had left. And it was wrong. 

It was very wrong. 

But it didn’t stop the feeling of possession he felt when he touched Dean.

Castiel had claim to him. 

He had pieced this human being back together and now Dean belonged to him, his flesh and blood and soul. 

Dean sounded brittle and unsure. “Uh, how ‘bout that cup of coffee?”

“I don’t care for the taste of coffee, Dean.” He said slowly, his voice not his own. “I prefer the taste of you.”

Dean was watching him, wide eyes uncertain. “Come again?” 

Despite the fact that he had spoken the truth, it was not what he had meant to say. He knew better. He knew that his words were not the sort of thing that you were meant to say to a friend.

 “I…” His throat was tight, he couldn’t make any other sound. He didn’t know what he was meant to say now. He couldn’t read the look on Dean’s face, couldn’t make sense of the feral expression he wore.

The hunter moved beneath his touch, leaning closer. When he finally spoke it was hardly more than a whisper. “Cas… I’m gunna kiss you again.” It sounded almost like a question. “If that’s not something you want then you better let me the hell go.” 

But… but if that  _was_  something he wanted… should he hold on? He tightened his grip on Dean’s shoulder and held his breath. 

Dean swallowed tickly, his gaze flicking from Castiel’s eyes to his mouth. It took half an eternity for Dean to close the distance between them. His lips were rough, chapped, but his mouth… his mouth was sweet, like he had had one of those sodas of his before bed. He licked his way into Castiel’s mouth, deliberate and hungry and he felt a rough moan clamor its way out of his chest.

One of the hunter’s hands came up to cup his face, a thumb running gently over his cheek bone before he shifted his grip, sliding to cradle the back of his head. Dean was pulling him down, gently, so gently and slow.

It took too long for him to realize that Dean was laying himself back on the bed, pulling Castiel with him. He clumsily laid down beside his friend, doing his best to keep their lips together. He didn’t know why it had taken him so long to find an opportunity to try a kiss, but he felt that he had done himself a real disservice in waiting. Dean was… he was very good at this. He knew just how much pressure to use, when to cut into Castiel’s lip with the edge of his teeth, when to slide his hand up under Castiel’s shirt- fingers skimming over his ribs, possessive and slow.

Dean slid a knee between his and Castiel let him. Dean was pulling Castiel on top of him, the hand in his hair sliding down his back, catching hold of his hip for a moment before moving to grab his- oh.

Oh.

Dean managed to get both his hands on the Angel’s backside and he drew their hips together firmly, rocking up into Castiel once, twice- uneven, reckless little movements.

Castiel didn’t know why- but that beautiful feeling made his back bow, his spine arching and he broke away from those agonizingly perfect kisses.

“Too much?” Dean asked in a ruined voice, gasping softly, looking up at Castiel with eyes darker than he had ever seen them.

He wanted to say no, he wanted to tell Dean to keep kissing him, to keep touching him. He wanted Dean’s sinful mouth on him. He wanted…

“Dean,” he struggled to find the right words. “Can you be the pizza man?”

Dean’s hands slid up to his back beneath his shirt, dancing along his spine, and the hunter laughed softly, the sound rolling deep in his chest. “What the actual hell, Cas?”   

“Or you can be the babysitter- if you like.” He wanted to give Dean the opportunity… if he wanted it.

“Damn it, Cas.” Recognition flared behind his eyes and he laughed again, kissing the edge of Castiel’s jaw, bringing a hand back up to card through his hair. “You- you have no idea what you do to me, do you?”

Castiel  _didn’t_  know. It must have shown on his face, because Dean chuckled again, low as thunder, before burying his face in the Angel’s neck, kissing the spot behind his ear. “How are you even real?”

“I,” he found it almost impossible to think of an answer while Dean’s teeth were on him. “I don’t understand.” 

“It’s called a rhetorical question, Cas.” He pulled back enough that their eyes could meet in the dark room, and Dean was grinning.

“Oh…” He wasn’t sure what Dean’s answer was, but they had stopped kissing and he didn’t like it.

Dean was watching his mouth, still smiling. Castiel began to feel a bit like a lamb caught up by a wolf. It wasn’t a particularly bad thing. It felt like finally letting himself go.

And he did let go, for the first time in many long minutes, he took his hand from Dean’s shoulder and he sat up, very aware of Dean’s eyes following his every movement. He found himself half kneeling over his friend, their legs tangled. A look of apprehension passed over the hunter’s face, but as Castiel started to tug at his tie, he relaxed. Sitting up, partially under Castiel, Dean was a little shorter, but this didn’t seem to faze him in the slightest as his hands came up to help with the stubborn knot of the tie, he bobbed his head back to Castiel’s neck, finding the spot he had been working on before with a content growl. 

The buttons on his shirt came undone with practiced ease, but he supposed that Dean would know how to work buttons easier than he did. Castiel had never really had a need to figure them out before now. Dean did everything slow, glancing furtively up at Castiel from time to time, asking with his eyes before each curious new touch. Castiel wanted to tell him to stop stopping- the answer was YES- but all he managed to do was moan softly and arch up into each touch. Dean’s mouth moved down his chest, teeth drawing helpless noises from him.

“Dean,” Sam’s voice sounded tired and confused on the other side of the room and for a moment Castiel could not fathom why the other man would even be here… in the motel room… that he of course was sharing with his brother like they always did… on the bed just a few feet away. “What was that- oh, god damn it, Dean! No!”

Dean’s mouth left Castiel’s chest, leaving a wet, bruised spot over one very hard nipple. Castiel groaned, digging his fingers into Dean’s shoulders, trying to get him to come back- because Sam could leave if he didn’t want to be there, because they weren’t going to just  _stop_  right when they-

“Sorry, Sam.” Dean was apologizing, wearing a lopsided grin that looked nothing at all apologetic. “Forgot you were in here.”

“I can see that.” He was looking very fixedly at the ceiling and not at his brother and the Angel on the other bed.

Castiel might be wrong, but Sam’s face looked a little flushed in the dim light.

“Don’t suppose you want to go on a walk or something, give us a little privacy for an hour or so.” Dean’s hands were on Castiel’s hips, his fingers moving slowly as he spoke, thumbs sliding beneath his belt, tugging it down.

“It’s three in the morning.” Sam looked over at them out of the corner of his eye. “I’m not going on a walk at three in the fucking morning, Dean.”

“You can go back to sleep, Sam.” Castiel found his voice, even if it didn’t sound right. “We will stay on this bed, you don’t have to worry.”

“Cas, I’m not worried you guys are going to-“ Sam hid his face in his hands. He made a frustrated noise low in his throat and dragged himself out of bed, picking up jeans from the floor. “You owe me, Dean.” He didn’t look at them while he dressed. Jeans buttoned, belt buckled, tshirt pulled over his head. 

“I owe you big time.” Dean agreed solemnly. “Take the car. Go get some coffee or something.” 

Sam grabbed the keys from the top of the tv set, they jangled loudly in the small room. “Use protection, you don’t know where he’s been.” He said over his shoulder as he opened the door.

Dean had kind of a barking laugh. “Dude, I’m sure he’s-”

“I was talking to Cas.” He closed the door behind him with more force than necessary. 

Seconds later the headlights of Dean’s car flooded the room and Castiel could see everything in crystalline detail, then the lights turned and pulled away, and it was so much darker than before.

“Dean?” Castiel asked after a moment, voice soft.

“I’m still here.”

“I  _know_  that.” It would be a hard thing to not know considering that Dean still had two fingers very firmly gripping his bared hips.

“Do you still…” He left the question hanging and for the life of him, Castiel could not understand how someone like Dean could be so uncertain at times like this. 

Castiel found his lips in the dark, kissing him with as much conviction as he could, doing his best to answer the words that Dean hadn’t said.


	15. Chapter 15

Sam stirred in his sleep, waking slowly, groggy. There was some noise, in the room with them or maybe in the parking lot… or maybe it had been in his dream. He tried to open his eyes, but they were heavy. 

No. He definitely heard something that time, a pained sound from the other side of the room. “Dean?” He pushed himself up to his elbows, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “What was that-“ and then he saw the  _that_  and wished he could unsee it. “Oh, god damn it, Dean! No!” As if he used a commanding enough voice it could force his brother to somehow be  _not_  making out with a dude, half naked on the other side of the room. 

Somewhere, deep down, Sam thought  _good for them_.

He had been waiting for years now for the two to stop dancing around each other- but that didn’t mean that it needed to happen here and now within arm’s reach.

Dean raised his head from the Angel’s chest which was bruised red with teeth marks. His brother’s eyes were dark with lust, unfocused and wild. “Sorry, Sam.” He said with a grin that meant he wasn’t even close to sorry. “Forgot you were in here.”

Sam rolled his eyes heavenward in exasperation. “I can see that.” And honestly he only half believe his brother because Dean had never before been shy about having sex in close proximity to Sam. The man had no shame. Not an ounce.

 And just on cue, Dean asked, “don’t suppose you want to go on a walk or something, give us a little privacy for an hour or so.” 

From the corner of his eye, Sam could see that Dean hadn’t taken his hands from the man straddling him, the man he was petting while he spoke. See? No shame. 

“It’s three in the morning.” He could just barely see the red lights of the clock. “I’m not going on a walk at three in the fucking morning, Dean.” Sleepy had turned to annoyed surprisingly fast.

“You can go back to sleep, Sam. We will stay on this bed, you don’t have to worry.” Cas’ voice was ruined- and Sam had the amusing thought that the Angel should get a job doing phone sex.  Sam didn’t even like men, and well… hot damn.

He took a quick breath, trying to clear his head. “Cas, I’m not worried you guys are going to-“  _T_ _o what_? Join him over here? Oh the horror. He rubbed at his face, groaning before getting up and grabbing his clothes. He dressed in quick, jerky movements, anger making him clumsy.

 “You owe me, Dean.” He pulled his shirt down over his head and knew his hair must be a mess.

“I owe you big time.” Dean agreed quickly, his voice ringing with victory. “Take the car. Go get some coffee or something.” A peace offering. 

Sam grabbed the keys from the top of the tv set, scowling as hard as he knew how. “Use protection,” he called over his shoulder to Cas. “You don’t know where he’s been.” 

 “Dude, I’m sure he’s-”

And Sam knew what his brother was thinking. First, that Sam was talking to him. Second, that Angels probably couldn’t catch anything and they didn’t need to worry. “I was talking to Cas.” He hoped that his brother picked up on the insult, which was only slightly more subtle of Sam yelling out MAN-WHORE as he slammed the door behind him. 

The Impala roared to life around him, the familiar rush of noise oddly comforting. He had to drive half an hour, all the way back out to Aurora to find a coffee shop open this early.

Thank god for Starbucks.

He had to go through the drive-thru, since the lobby wasn’t open yet, and the sleepy eyed college kid in the window handed over his grande coffee, straight black, no sugar, no frills or fun… just coffee the way it was intended. She also handed over a warm little blueberry muffin which looked very tiny in Sam’s hand. He smiled at the girl and dropped his change in the little plastic bin beside the window before rolling the mighty beast of a car out to the parking lot.

He ate in perfect silence, not even bothering to turn on the radio, trying to find a bit of peace. 

It was hard when he knew that his brother was a few miles away having (much needed) sex with one of their few friends and allies. Sam could see this ending a few different ways, very few of them were good, but the bad all came in varying shades of gray. Sam would hope and pray that Dean didn’t screw this up too badly, but he knew his brother and he knew that it was a waste of breath. Dean always screwed things up- he was one of the few people as good at making an utter mess of things as Sam was.

Napping in the Impala was an art. Sure, she was as big as a boat and Sam had all the room in the world for his obscenely long legs. The seats were old and the springs had a way of finding your most tender spots when you were trying to get comfortable. But Sam was well practiced in sleeping stretched out across the bench seat and he managed to pass out for a few hours.

He woke when the sun came in through the windshield, muted and soft as it filtered in through the clouds. Maybe they would get lucky and have a bit of summer rain. Sam wiped a hand over his mouth and sat up slowly, sore in all kinds of bad places. He suffered down the last cold dregs of his coffee and cracked his jaw on a yawn. 

Sam got out his phone and debated calling his brother- but he knew Dean was probably blissfully unconscious by this point, tired out after a good, long... Sam made a face, desperate to not finish that thought. Instead he fumbled around in a different pocket and found the slightly bent business card he had been given the day before. It was still too early to call Alice the coroner- at least too early to call her cell phone, but the card had nice and tidy black print with her office number.

“Hi, Alice.” He said softly into the message machine. “This is agent-” oh god, what name was he going under this time? “Agent Scully from the FBI.” He could just fall back on the joke from yesterday. “Just wanted to check in on you- on the case. See if you found anything new. Give me a call when you get in.” And he rattled off his cell number, not sure if he had given it to her the night before. He closed the phone and tapped it lightly against the steering wheel. 

The Starbucks was open proper now and Sam went in, having to wait in line with the morning rush. A dark haired barista took his order and Sam swung by the bathroom to splash some cold water on his face and try to wake up a little better. His drinks were waiting for him on the counter when he got back. Two coffees. One for him and one for Dean. 

Dean was going to need a strong drink to get his post-coital ass out of bed and be of any use to anyone today. Sam just hoped that the French roast would be strong enough. 

He took his time driving back Millington, letting the Impala just kind of coast down the nearly deserted highway, her engine gently shaking the whole cab, jostling his legs. He sipped at his coffee and it tasted sweet on the back of his tongue. Kind of… syrupy. He scowled, because the wrong drink was a bad start which typically set the mood for the rest of the day. 

A wide yawn racked his chest and he scrunched up his eyes. Things were… blurry. He took another drink then tucked the cup between his knees so he could rub at his eyes with the back of a wrist. It’s like all the sleep in his body had settled right between his eyes and he slowed down a bit, blinking widely, trying to focus. His hand came away from his face smeared red with blood and Sam went into an instant panic. 

See, wrong drink, then bleeding from the eyes- it was a bad omen. 

Sam made to pull over, but a seizure took him before he could. 

He ended up on the side of the road anyway, the nose of the Impala down in a gravel ditch, the engine stalled, the windshield grey with dust and splintered through with spider web cracks. Sam was struggling to keep his eyes open now. There was blood on the steering wheel and a little on the windshield about head height. The blood was cold, congealing, and Sam had the feeling that he had lost a bit of time somehow.

There was a strange little noise going on at his side and it took him a long while to realize that it was his cell phone. He struggled to uncurl from around the steering wheel and his ribs ached like he had been stabbed and he couldn’t get enough breath. 

The subtle shifting of his body sent his head spinning. He closed his eyes tight, fighting down nausea and the overwhelming want to pass back into unconsciousness. 

He managed to fish his cell phone out from between the seats, but he couldn’t get his eyes to focus enough to read the little green letters. 

Fumbling to open the phone, fingers clumsy, it wasn’t really much of a surprise when it slipped away from his grasp, clattering to the floor boards. The ringing stopped.

Sam’s hands were shaking and he couldn’t reach his phone. He couldn’t manage to work the seatbelt either and all the futile little movements were taking their toll on his body. He tried to catch his breath, but he underestimated how badly his ribs were broken and the simple act of breathing sent fire through his chest. 

He ended up doubled over in pain, gasping, choking on syrupy sweet vomit. The world was exploding in white hot pain and Sam knew he should be afraid for himself- but all he managed to do was worry about how mad Dean would be when he saw the car.


	16. Chapter 16

His higher thought processes never really had a chance to come online before he found Cas straddling him, undressing. But that was a while ago and Dean’s long gone now, reduced to the physical, the wash of sensation. 

It’s very obvious, early on, that the Angel had no idea what he was doing, nor could he articulate what he wanted Dean to do. Mostly he just says yes. Actually, mostly he just  _yell_ _ed_ in a positive tone- but Cas has never really been good at modulating his voice to appropriate volumes.

Motel rooms have notoriously thin walls.

So do public bathrooms.

As well as the backseat of cars.

Dean was more than used to keeping his voice down.

Cas wasn’t used to any of this.

Dean didn’t have the heart to tell him that shouting inarticulate little acclamations which sounded an awful lot like ‘please and ‘harder’ and ‘Dean, yes, yes, yes’, were not what their neighbors wanted to hear at three in the morning.

Neither of them lasted very long. Cas came undone with the hunter’s name on his lips and it was enough to push Dean over the edge. He buried his face in the Angel’s shoulder in a vain attempt to stifle the primal, wanton sounds he found himself making, panting and cursing and begging all in the same ragged breath before collapsing into a tangled mess of blankets and limbs.

Cas was underneath him, long pale legs still firmly hooked over Dean’s hips, one foot awkwardly on the back of his thigh. 

“You still here, Cas?” He propped himself up on his elbows, amused to see that the other man’s eyes were still shut tight, breath panting out between slightly curved lips. 

“Cas?” He coaxed gently, lightly touching the Angel’s cheek. “Castiel?”

And Cas turned slightly into the touch, he even answered, but his words were slurred and nowhere close to English.

Enocian was beautiful to hear, like... stupidly so. Enough that Dean’s chest suddenly felt tight, his eyes stinging, and it was completely unfair for his body to just react to something like that without his permission.

“Calm down, dude.” He begged gently, kissing the stream of words from Cas’ mouth.

The Angel shuttered beneath him, eyes closed just as tight, but the mumbling stopped because he was kissing back, licking his way into Dean’s mouth in a beautifully practiced way. 

He was a quick learner. 

Dean was a good teacher.

They got a bit distracted and before long Cas was pushing against him again, looking for friction, already hard. But it was too soon for Dean. He wasn’t as young as he used to be- and he needed a little bit of time before he was ready to go again… more three minutes at least. He supposed that Cas just needed to make up for lost time. And millennia of not getting his rocks off meant that there was a  _lot_  of lost time to be made up.

Even if he was too exhausted for some glorious marathon sex, he wasn’t about to tell Cas no. His mind was willing even though his body was weak- or some saying like that. 

Dean got a hand between them, stroking the length of Cas in an easy, practiced movement- marveling at how beautiful the other man cold look as he arched and moaned in appreciation of the skilled touch.

And Dean was more than happy to touch him.

Dean was happy to help Cas find the relief that he was begging for.

Dean was such a good helper.

He tried not to congratulate himself too much.

Cas came a second time, clutching Dean’s shoulders hard enough that there would be bruises in the morning. Moaning, arching, and Dean distinctly heard the sound of splintering glass.

Window shattering sex.

Awesome. 

Something for Dean to check off his list. 

He kissed Cas softly, slow little brush of lips until their breaths evened out. He carefully pushed his hands against the other man’s legs, spreading them, extracting himself from the full bodied embrace. Cas whimpered, reaching for him, murmuring with his nonwords and Dean kissed the tip of his nose.

“ ‘s-ok.” He assured before gently rolling Cas over, settling in behind him, becoming the big spoon. 

Almost instantly Cas settled down, making soft approving noises as Dean snaked an arm around him.

If he was any kind of good man, Dean would have made ‘pillow talk’, would have said all those gloriously damning things that he was only brave enough to say in his dreams. 

Instead, he fell asleep.

Yesterday had been taxing and right now was still the middle of the night.

He wouldn’t apologize.

A man needs his sleep.

He woke when the sun started coming into the room, low and golden and already too hot for as early as it was.

“Good morning, Dean.” Cas rumbled, his back to Dean’s chest, warm and pleasant.

It took a few moments for Dean to get his thoughts in order, to make sense as to why he was naked in bed with his best friend. It came back to him quickly, and he bore his teeth in a wolf like grin.

“Morning, you beautiful son of a bitch.” He kissed the back of Cas’ neck and was rewarded with a startled, pleased sound.

“I like this more than I thought I would.” He rolled his shoulders, pressing into Dean.

“Yeah?” He tightened his arm around the Angel’s chest, feeling weirdly protective. “It’s because I’m so awesome.”

“Yes.” He agreed simply, and Dean found himself laughing. If it was anyone else that little word would have sounded sarcastic- but not from Cas. From Cas it was… it was just expected. Maybe one day he would be able to talk like a normal person, but it wouldn’t be today.

Dean felt he had every right to just lay there for a bit, basking in the weird feeling of contentment he felt. It might be because he knew himself, and he knew how his life tended towards entropy. This little pocket of time, this little bit of perfection couldn’t last. He needed to enjoy it while he could, because despite whatever better intentions he had, this might be the only chance he was going to get.

Lazily he sat up just enough to see the other bed, it was still empty.

“Did Sam already come back and leave again?” 

“No.” Cas sounded lazy, maybe even happy. 

And despite the soft glow that Dean felt under his skin, something dark and doubt flavored crept in. Maybe his brother was just giving him extra space- which would have been unspeakably nice for Sam to do… which is to say it didn’t seem like something that he would do at all. 

“Hand me my phone, Cas.” He was already reaching for it on the nightstand, stretching his arm out over the other man, but coming up short. 

Without an ounce of argument or hesitation, Cas reached out and grabbed the phone, passing it over his shoulder.

“Thanks, baby.” Dean said it as a joke and only had the smallest moments of horror- because he had never called anyone baby other than his car. He was  _so_  glad Sam wasn’t here to hear that. Dean would never live it down.

He dialed his wayward brother and listened to an endless stream or rings.

“Sammy?” He spoke into the receiver, leaving a message for whenever Sam felt like listening to it. “If you get this bring bagels or something. I’m starving.” He hung up and tossed the phone over to Sam’s bed. “Well then… what should we do while we wait for Sam to bring us breakfast?”

“We could… perhaps go over this hunt of yours again and-”

“Cas, I was trying to be subtle.”

“I… I’m not as good at picking up on subtleties as others.”

“I guess I’ll just have to be less subtle.” If there was one thing that Dean was good at, it was being less subtle.

They had some slow, kind of quiet morning sex. It couldn’t have been more perfect if there had been pie served afterwards. Instead he got to lay stretched out on the bed, Cas’s head heavy on his chest while they tried to find some meaning in the water stains on the ceiling, tried to catch their breaths. 

“Have you considered,” Cas managed to remember how to speak English after a long quiet, “the fact that I could create a temporary bubble of time separate from this reality, where all there is is me and you and this bed?” His fingers were moving curious over Dean’s hip, no respect at all for how indecent his touch was becoming. “No time would pass out here, but for us it would be hours… days…” His hand slid over Dean, palms sticky and warm.

“Dude.” He laughed deep in his chest, warm all over and a little dizzy at the suggestion. “You’re gunna’ kill me.”

 “Is that a ‘no’?” Cas looked up, eyes swimmingly dark, depthless.

“We’ve got bodies on the floor, Cas. I wouldn’t be able to focus.”  You don’t run off and vanish for a few days (perceivably or not) in the middle of a hunt. Dean had rules. There weren’t many, but he stuck to them.

“Has this been you  _unfocused_?” Cas raised his eyebrows just a hint, looking impressed. “We should definitely do this again when I can have all your attention.”

“We can do this every damn day until the world ends.” He promised, his stomach starting to hurt with how hard he was laughing.

“But, Dean… I don’t think you will live that long.” He had a little frown, daring to question Dean’s alleged immortality.

“It’s just a saying-“

“Unless there is another apocalypse coming soon.” He sounded thoughtful, maybe even a little confused, unsure as to why Dean was laughing at him. “But if so I will do my best to keep you alive… again.”

“Thank you.” His cheeks were hurting, he was smiling too widely, too much. He clumsily slapped his hand around on the nightstand until he found the little clock, picking it up so he could read it. 

It was quarter past nine.

Sam still hadn’t come back.

Hadn’t called.

That wasn’t like Sam.

“Where is that kid?” He asked to no one in particular.

Cas blinked up a him, tilting his head just so, waiting for Dean to elaborate.

“Sam. He should be back by now.”

“Maybe he knew that we would need extra time. He is a very smart young man.”

“Nah, I left him a message. He should have come back with food.” He sat up, Cas making a small noise of protest before sitting beside him. 

“Are we going to go find him?” Cas asked as he stretched subtly, rolling his shoulders, completely shameless of the fact that he was buck naked- not even a blanket covering him.

Dean spent a little bit of time just looking at Cas, the soft curve of his back, the angle of his hips, the curve of muscle in his arms. 

“Dean?” Cas blinked up at him and the hunter became aware that he had been staring… for quite some time.

“Yeah. Let me try calling him again.” He wiped at his mouth, pulling off his grin and crawling onto his brother’s bed to retrieve his phone.

The second call didn’t go much better than the first and Dean didn’t bother leaving another message. He got up and realized that a shower was out of the question- as the water still wasn’t working. He did his best to clean up with a scratchy towel and a water bottle. It wasn’t great, but it got the sticky mess off his stomach… and Cas came over to help him, so that was nice, even if he was less of a help and more of a distraction. Dean didn’t complain. 

It was only after they dressed and made out against the wall for about ten minutes before he was able to focus enough of the important task at hand, and pull Cas along with him to the parking lot- only to remember that he had sent Sam away with the car.

“Well… hell.” He licked his lip and looked at the threatening clouds in the sky. “Can you just zap us to him?” The second time that Sam didn’t answer his phone Dean had started to worry- not enough to stop kissing Cas, but worried all the same. For all Dean knew though, his brother was kicking it in a library somewhere and had his phone on silent- or had gone up to Aurora to check out the body again.

“No, Dean. He still has the sigil carved in his ribs. I-“ and he got a distant look on his face, turning slowly to face North. “I can take you to him.”

“But you just said-“ Cas had already reached out and touched his cheek and they weren’t where they were any longer.

They stood on a long stretch of highway, dusty grey and tan, tones of sepia and dry corn fields touching the sky. 

“Fuck, Cas.” Dean found his footing. “Warn me next time you do that.” 

Cas looked at him sideways but said nothing. 

“Where the hell are we? Where’s Sam?” He spun in a slow circle, nothing as far as he could see in either direction. He turned back to Cas, but he was already walking away towards the deep irrigation ditch that ran along the side of the road, separating it from the fields.

A bad feeling started in his stomach, rolling down to his toes, making him feel heavy and slow. Cas stood on the roadside, near the dying crops, and Dean could see that stalks were bent- a wide area pushed inward like a big hand had laid them down. He got closer, he didn’t want to, but that didn’t stop his legs from taking him there.

The Impala’s tail rose up out of the crushed fields like a shark’s fin cutting through the surf. She was filthy, almost as grey as the landscape around them, but Dean knew those taillights anywhere.

“Sam!” And he was barreling down the steep incline, feet slipping in the gravel as he skid to catch himself on the edge of the trunk. 

“Sam!” The name tore from his throat, rough with panic.

He saw his brother, slumped over the steering wheel, dark blood smeared on the cracked windshield, and Sam wasn’t answering him. He wasn’t moving at all. 

The earth stopped, all the sound dropped out. And Dean knew, he knew in the pit of his stomach, carving him out raw and bloody-

“Sam.” He had lost all other words and even that single one was hard, flaying his throat open. His hands were clumsy on the door handle, fear and adrenalin making him all thumbs. His ungainly tall brother came spilling out of the car, boneless and broken- reeking of blood and vomit and… coffee?

Dean caught him, falling to his knees, holding his brother to his chest. “Sam! Damn it, Sam. Wake up.”

Sam didn’t, because he was a jerk- but he groaned, his head rolling a little as he shifted in pain. He was unconscious. 

Unconscious but still breathing and Dean sent up a silent prayer of thanks to whoever listened to such things.


	17. Chapter 17

Castiel carefully made his way down the sharp incline, following in Dean’s wake, footing unsure in the loose rocks. Being an Angel didn’t mean that he had perfect balance, his body was still very human in very inconvenient ways. He was forced to stretch his arms out from his sides, fingers wide, pin wheeling subtly with each sliding step. 

Dean was still shouting his brother’s name, despite the fact that Sam had yet to answer, or even stir from where he was curled up on the seat of the car. Dean didn’t hesitate and the black door popped open with a shower of dirt and profanities. 

“Sam,” the hunter’s voice was thick, heavy with grief as he caught Sam and fell to his knees. And really, Dean had no reason to let himself feel that much pain- because Sam was still alive. He was injured badly, but he was still very much alive. Castiel would have known if the man’s soul had departed. 

“Sam! Damn it, Sam. Wake up.” Dean shook his brother gently, brushing blood matted hair from his pale face.

Like a response, timed just right, Sam groaned in pain and his eyes fluttered for a moment. 

“Thank god.” Dean sobbed in relief and Castiel felt a twinge of pain in his chest.

Honestly, Dean was far better at blasphemy than honest prayer- but Castiel knew what he heard, he felt the faith and the gratitude in those simple words even if they weren’t directed to anyone in particular.

“You’re gunna’ be ok, Sammy.” He was whispering in the same broken voice.

It was not Dean’s place to make judgments like that. He had no medical degree. He had no inherent ability to sense how injured his brother was. But Dean was stubborn, as if by pure force of will he could mend Sam’s body. 

“Cas! Don’t just stand there- fix him!” He turned that intense flood of emotions to Castiel, eyes showing too much white. He looked frantic.

Despite the fact that he was not made to serve man, Castiel had never been able to tell Dean no. He liked to think that it had little to do with his ability to follow orders and more to do with the fact that Dean was a particularly exceptional human being who deserved more leeway than others.

The gravel cut into his knees as Castiel knelt down beside the brothers. Sam’s skin was cold beneath his hand, and that wasn’t right. It was too hot outside for him to be so cold. From the corner of Castiel’s eye, he could see dark blood on the seat of the Impala. Far more blood than he thought there should be. But he wasn’t a doctor either- so what did he know?

Sam’s blood was gritty beneath his fingers and Castiel did his best to ignore it because he had work to do. He let his Grace flow into Sam, just a slow stream that reached out to touch all those dark, broken parts of the man. Through bone and marrow and fraying nerves. From the gash in his forehead to his broken left knee which had swollen enough that it could no longer bend. The touch of Sam’s mind, distantly conscious of the intrusion, was as bright and sharp and painful as trying to look at the sun. There were things wrong with Sam, horrible, frightening things which had nothing to do with the car crash. Things that Castiel would never be able to fix- and even still, those wicked things hiding deep in Sam could not come close to diminishing the light he held within him. And maybe he had been corrupted early in his youth, but there was still the promise of good in him. More than there seemed to be in most people.

It reminded Castiel just how much he loved both men- even if in very drastically different ways. 

Healing Sam took less than a second. Pulling the poison from his blood took maybe twice that. From the look on Dean’s face, it was still too long.

Castiel sat back on his heels, holding his hand out awkwardly, fingers dark and sticky with the ichor he had pulled from Sam’s blood. His best guess was that the poison had come from foxglove- it was truly a lovely flower even if incredibly poisonous. But he knew from watching humans for hundreds upon hundreds of years it was that they were constantly look for new and interesting ways to kill each other. Even with the advances of modern techonology, there would always be old favorites. Poison never seemed to go out of style.

It was now time to wait. He had done what he could for Sam. Technically the man was now ‘as good as new’ but even so, he would wake under his own terms. Castiel had no power over that.  

It took perhaps half a minute for Sam to stir and his eyes to flutter open, warm gaze the color of autumn. He found his brother (not hard considering that his head was still cradled against Dean’s chest) and panic blossomed over his face. He understood what had just happened to him, even if only in part. 

Despite the fact that brushing up against death was a regular occurrence in the young hunters’ lives, it didn’t seem to be an aspect that they had become jaded to. Not yet at least.

The brothers made noises at one another, words of relief alongside gently veiled threats as they hugged violently.  

No one told Castiel ‘thank you’.

But then again, he hadn’t been expecting them to.

He idly wiped the ick from his hand to the dry scrub grass around his shoes. It didn’t help much, the movement only served to spread the mess a little thinner. 

The brothers were still talking; still too close- and Castiel had an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t like them holding each other, but he also knew that they had been doing this sort of thing long before Castiel became a part of their life. Just as he knew that if he were to leave them, they would keep on doing this sort of thing. He made an active decision to push the feeling aside. The feeling that he thought might be jealousy. 

Jealousy went hand in hand with envy and Castiel had already indulged himself in at least two of the seven worst sins he knew. He didn’t need to add a third one. At least not today.

Maybe tomorrow if he had time.

He smelled the sticky mess on his fingers and it was sweet. Sweeter than Dean’s sodas. Almost definitely foxglove. He felt his nose wrinkle and he took another breath before licking his lips- moving to put a finger in his mouth. 

It was just curiosity. 

“Cas. No.” Dean didn’t reach out to him, but his few words were firm and harsh, like he was reprimanding a child. “Whatever that is, don’t put it in your mouth.”

“It’s wouldn’t be enough to cause harm to my vessel.” He said with confidence, even though he wasn’t positive on the fact. “I simply wanted to know what the poison tasted like.”

“Poison?” Sam was sitting up under his own power now, clear eyes in the mask of dried blood. “Wait- was I poisoned?” 

“Yes.” Castiel reluctantly lowered his hand, still curious about what it would taste like, but he didn’t want Dean to get cross with him. “I think most of the damage came from you running the car off the road though.”

“The car?” Sam looked to his side and his eyes went wide. “Oh god. Dean, the car- I’m so sorry.”

Anger made Dean’s eyes dark for a moment and he was obviously fighting a battle between the protectiveness he felt for his car and a similar protectiveness that he felt for his brother.

Sam won out. 

Sam always would.

Dean smiled with a flash of teeth. “You ever touch her again and I’ll make sure you don’t get back up.” It was with that beautiful promise that Dean launched himself to his feet, holding one hand out to his brother, one to Castiel. They both clasped his hands at the same time and Dean had to throw himself backwards to counteract their weight.

Sam seemed unsteady on his feet once he let go of his brother, and it must have been all that height he had. Legs as long as those were bound to give anyone trouble, Castiel supposed. Sam must have had a very oddly placed center of gravity being roughly twice as tall as most humans.

As easy as if he had done it a thousand times, Dean released Castiel’s hand and slid an arm around his waist, drawing them together until their hips brushed. Not knowing why, this made the Angel smile. He could feel it in his cheeks. It was a fantastic feeling.

“Help me get my baby out of this ditch.” Dean had a habit of asking things in ways that made them sound nothing at all like a question.

Sam scratched flaking blood from his face, looking at them out of the corner of his eye. “Are you two going to be like this,” he gestured vaguely in their direction, “from now on?”

“Nah.” Dean’s hand gave Castiel’s hip a little squeeze. “We’ll be much more naked than this fairly often.”

Sam made a face, a hint of white teeth flashing. “Just try and remember to wake me up first next time.”


	18. Chapter 18

Dean pulled Sam into a firm hug. Violently happy to see his baby brother awake and breathing and all those fantastic things that he did so well. Sam hugged back, just as fiercely and they beat against each other’s back like war drums, grinning like fools the whole while.

“You beautiful son of a bitch. Don’t scare me like that.” He had two fistfuls of his brother’s jacket and he shook him as if the physical movement could force some sense into the man. “Kick your ass next time.”

Sam said something unintelligible- or maybe Dean just wasn’t listening. He was in his happy place, why did he need to listen? With a grin he turned to Cas, to tell the Angel thank you, maybe kiss him, or pull him into the hug.

Cas was crouched beside them, in his own little world, looking at the goo that he had pulled from Sam’s chest. His fingers were black with the stuff, sticky like tar. And Dean had never made any kind of pretense of understanding the Angel. Cas was really more of an  _it_  than a  _who_  most of the time, and the things that he did were often beyond basic human logic.

Even still, Dean had no idea why the Angel was putting his ick coated fingers to his lips like a kid looking to eat some particularly delicious frosting.

 “Cas. No.” Dean said without thinking, the words coming out louder than he intended. “Damn it- whatever that is, don’t put it in your mouth.”

The Angel blinked those impossibly blue eyes of his, doing a fantastic impersonation of an owl. “It wouldn’t be enough to cause harm to my vessel.” He sounded so sure of himself. “I simply wanted to know what the poison tasted like.”

Sam released his big brother, but didn’t really move away, He opened and closed his mouth a few times, struggling with the word. “Poison?” Like he didn’t understand. “Wait- was I poisoned?” 

Cas looked at them both with an exasperated sigh. He must get so tired of answering rhetorical questions. “Yes. I think most of the damage came from you running the car off the road though.”

“The car?” Sam might be awake, but he hadn’t gotten all his shit together yet. “Oh god. Dean, the car- I’m so sorry.”

And he just had to bring it up, didn’t he? Dean knew his baby was hurt, but so was his brother and he had chosen to (if only for a few moments) focus on the more important one. The poor car was right there, leaking dark fluid into the dry, pale dirt. Dean didn’t need the reminder. He bore his teeth in what he hoped came off as a threatening manner. 

 “You ever touch her again and I’ll make sure you don’t get back up.” It was an idle, but important threat. If Dean had answered any other way then Sam would have thought he was mad at him. 

And to be fair he was mad. He was furious. 

But it wasn’t directed at Sam. 

It was with whatever jackass had dared to hurt his baby brother, and by proxy, the Impala.

When Dean found them, there wouldn’t be enough pieces left to identify the remains.

First things first.

He dragged himself to his feet and held out both hands in offering to the two men looking up at him. It was harder than it should have been to haul them to their feet, but Dean was a big strong man and he managed.

 Sam wobbled upright and looked like he might go back down, but he waved Dean off and leaned against the hood of the car.

Cas, still holding onto Dean's hand quite firmly, seeming not to understanding that it had been meant as a temporary gesture. As easily as if he had done it a thousand times before, Dean shook his hand free and slid an arm around Cas’ waist. It felt right, holding him close, their sides bumping together.

Dean almost kissed him right then and there, impulsive and reckless- but he decided to spare Sam having to share the moment with them. Instead he gave the Angel’s narrow hip a firm squeeze. “Help me get my baby out of this ditch.” 

Cas was looking up at him with an expression which could only be called ‘happy’. And Dean didn’t really feel like controlling his impulses. He started to close the short distance between their lips, eyes drifting closed in hungry anticipation.

Sam made a very disruptive noise before flailing an overly long arm in their direction. “Are you two going to be like this from now on?”

Dean straightened and thought he saw a look of quiet disappointment pass over Cas’ face. “Nah. We’ll be much more naked than this fairly often.”

Sam groaned again, lip curling in disgust. “Just try and remember to wake me up first next time.”

“Dude, people pay money to watch that stuff.” He let go of Cas and walked around his car, assessing the damage.

“That’s so wrong, Dean.” Sam suppressed a shutter as he rubbed dried blood from his face.

Now that Sammy was all in one piece, Dean couldn’t be sure what sort of damage there had been when they got to him- but from the sheer amount of blood on his brother and on the windshield, Dean was guessing a mighty fine concussion complete with multiple head lacerations. Sam had always been a bleeder.

Dean was going to have to replace the upholstery. 

“Better than pay-per-view, Sammy.” He assured, but most of the humor had left his voice. 

There was just so much blood.

He had spent the morning having sex- while his kid brother was broken and bleeding in the middle of nowhere. It was hard to keep up the friendly banter when you felt like a complete dick.

His mood didn’t improve once they got back on the road. Cas used his freakish, in-human strength to help push the Impala out of the ditch- even though Dean had suspicions that such manual labor was probably against some Angelic code or something. The poor car rode a little rough. The radiator was busted and he was grateful that it was only a few miles back to the motel, because any further and she would have just over heated and died right there on the highway. It didn’t help that Dean was in the driver’s seat, looking through a cracked windshield, smeared with his brother’s blood, sitting on a bench seat the stank of coffee, vomit and, you guessed it- more blood. He had attempted to at least clean the windshield up enough to not freak out anyone who happened to drive past them, but the only fluid in the car was a half drunk bottle of orange Gatorade rolling around the backseat.

Dean’s car was broken and sticky.

Even if the day had started off in his favor, everything had definitely gone downhill- and fast.

“But why would someone want to poison me?” Sam was talking overly loud, window all the way down to try and counteract the smell.

“Someone wanted to hurt you, obviously.” Castiel sighed. “The amount of foxglove that you consumed was not enough to kill you, so injury is the only logical reason.”

Dean glanced in the rearview mirror to watch the Angel shifting in the backseat. “Foxglove?”

 “It’s a flower.” Sam wiped a hand over his mouth. “It’s toxic to humans and animals.”

“You’re saying you were eating flowers.” There was not much in the way of disbelief in that question, like he caught Sam eating flowers all the time.

“The coffee… it tasted funny.” Sam’s voice was slow, confused.

 “The coffee?” Dean pulled his car into the motel parking lot. 

“I grabbed some Starbucks for us.” He closed his eyes for a breath, collecting his thoughts- putting himself back together. “I left it on the counter when I went to the bathroom.”

“Dude, you got roofied in a Starbucks. Who does that? Don’t they teach all the girls not to leave their drinks unattended anymore?” He climbed out and opened the backdoor for Cas. “That’s how they get you Sammy.”

Sam looked at Dean over the top of the car, eyebrows high. “I just don’t get  _why_  someone would poison me.”

“I can think of a few reasons.”

“I’m being serious, Dean. Someone tried to kill me. This isn’t a joking matter.”

Cas came to stand way too close to Dean, but the hunter didn’t feel a need to talk about personal space today. Today he would take comfort in it.

“Sam-  if they had wanted to kill you they would have had to give you at least four times the dosage.” Cas stayed right beside Dean, like a baby duck following its mom. “It was obviously not their intent.”

“How do you know these things?” Sam shuffled after them. “Have you been poisoning a lot of people lately, Cas?”

“No.” The Angel said with a frown, but there was no deeper explanation offered. 

They came to stand in their little motel room. Not enough space for the three of them, all crowded together. 

“I-I need a shower. Then I’ll call the coroner again. See if she found anything new on the body.”

“The water’still off.” Dean reminded and sat himself down on the edge of his bed.

“Of course it is.” Sam ran his hands through his hair, making it stand every which way. “Man, it stinks like sweat and ass in here. You could have at least cracked a window.”

“Just think of it as… musk. Very manly musk.” Dean suggested with a grin, watching his brother fight to open the lone window as if that would help. 

“Musk you.” Sam muttered- or at least something that sounded very similar to that. It was soft enough that Dean couldn’t be sure.

“I can fix the shower.” Cas offered, looking up at Sam, seemingly lost to all the implications going around the room. 

“You do plumbing too?” Dean leaned back on his elbows, grinning.

“As an Angel I have been tasked with performing miracles.”

“The miracle of the working shower?” Sam let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh.

“As a reminder of the Divine’s influence in all things.”  He assured before walking to the bathroom. The beautiful noise of running water filled the room and Cas returned with a waft of steam.

Even though the gesture was not well received, Sam clasped one of his big hands over the Angel’s shoulder. The smaller man looked shaken, eyes a little wide, not used to the physical contact. 

“Thanks, Cas.” Sam’s voice was gentle. “For… for taking care of us.” He finished awkwardly.

“Someone needs to.” Cas answered carefully, a confused look on his face. 

And Dean thought haltingly that they really needed to take more opportunities to show gratitude to the Angel who had been keeping them alive since he came barreling into their lives.

Sam went to shower.

Dean held his arms out to Cas and was rewarded with the continued confused expression.

“C’m here.” He instructed, and watched with a smile as the Angel took the two steps needed to stand beside him. Dean caught him with ease and pulled him down. The man didn’t put up a fight- he just went where Dean steered him, sitting gingerly on the hunter’s lap.

His blue eyes were all over the room, reluctant to settle on any one thing. “I don’t understand what-”

Dean cut the words off by kissing him, cupping his cheek and pulling their bodies together. Just a hasty brush of lips, a little too hungry, but no one was judging him. “Like Sam said. Thanks.”

Those beautiful eyes softened, but Cas didn’t answer so much as he slipped his arms around Dean’s neck and just kissed him. Kissed him until Dean was dizzy. His fingertips tingling, his lips bitten and bruised. And Cas learned too fast. Too damned fast. He was already pushing the hunter back onto the bed, hands shoving his shirt up, fingertips digging in to bared flesh.

Sam’s voice was overly loud, startling like a smoke alarm. “Oh- come on!”

Dean managed to surface, gasping and blinking wildly, trying to get his eyes to focus on his very clean and freshly dressed brother who stood on the far end of the room scowling. It was hard to do with Cas straddling him- but he managed, on account of being just that awesome. 

Sam sighed in a resigned manner, as if he already knew what the answer would be. “Are you guys going to do this every time I leave the room?” 

Dean grinned with every one of his teeth. “Oh, god. I hope so.”

“What an odd thing to pray for.” Cas whispered against his ear, voice husky and damning. 

“Come on.” Dean laughed and reluctantly nudged at the Angel. “Off.”

“Don’t.” Sam was grabbing his phone, heading for the door. “Don’t stop on my account. You two have a lot of time to make up for. I’m gunna walk to the Seven-Eleven down the road, get something to eat, call the coroner. You guys have time for a quick one.”

It felt like a trap, but Dean wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. “That’s… that’s mighty generous of you, Sammy.”

“Don’t get used to it.” His younger brother said like a threat before shuffling out, closing the door loudly behind him.

Dean marveled at how the universe had seen fit to give him such a miraculous little brother- but the thought vanished as Cas bit down against his shoulder, a little too rough, but wonderful all the same.

It didn’t happen often, but Sam had been wrong. There was time enough for a quickie as well as rough fondle in the shower before his brother came back, knocking loudly and shouting ‘hello’ as a warning before opening the door.

Dean was sitting at the little table, looking at Sam’s laptop, trying to fight the afterglow long enough to focus on the case files. He looked up at Sam and grinned.

“No.” His kid brother said simply. “Whatever you’re going to say- just don’t.” He set a bag of Funyuns and a Coke on the table beside Dean’s elbow. “Where’d your boyfriend go?”

“He had  _angely_  things to do.” He shrugged and cracked open the soda. “Said to give him a call if we needed him again.”

“Yeah, well, next time you  _need_  him- you’re getting your own room.” Sam sat on his bed, but not before stealing away his laptop. “Alice said that they were able to identify the body.”

“Alice?” Dean raised an eyebrow.

“The coroner.” Sam clarified with a frown, remembering that she and his brother hadn’t met. “The little girl, Kylee Colton, went missing out of Chicago two days ago. They’re pretty sure at least. Parents are coming in to make a positive ID this afternoon.”

Dean paused with a chip halfway to his mouth. “Chicago? That’s… that’s a hell of a long way to go to dump a body. Something doesn’t feel right about this.”

Sam nodded slowly, glancing up from his computer. “You up for a trip to the  _Windy City_?”

Roadmaps, memorized long ago flashed through Dean’s mind. It was about an hour and a half drive from Millington to Chicago (if speed limits were followed). Too far for the Impala to make in her current condition. 

“The body is willing, Sammy- but the car is weak. She’s not going anywhere until I get that radiator fixed.”

Sam’s gaze slid to the window and the parking lot outside. “We could always rent a car like normal people.”

“No rental lots out here. It would be faster and cheaper to just steal one.”

“Really, Dean?” Sam sounded offended, but more like a cursory feeling. He expected this from his big brother, but he still had to put up a fight.

“You have a better suggestion, I’m all ears.”

Sam pursed his lips, eyes narrowing before closing his laptop. "Yeah. Cas. He can pop us over there, no problem.”

“We can’t just use him for transport whenever we’ve got to get somewhere.” Dean made a point of being offended. 

“Why not?”

He frowned, but couldn’t come up with a good answer.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I'm going through each chapter before I post them, cleaning things up a bit, and just pleasantly enjoying a story that's not terrible- considering it's probably the second fic I'd ever written for this fandom. I think that Dean might be a bit too touchy... but the personalities of the 3 guys still feel close to 'right'. Ya know?

Castiel was watching a rainstorm in Florida. It may have been a full-blown hurricane, but in him it did not summon the normal feelings that accompanied the word. The force of nature was violent, but clean. There was beauty in the chaos. It helped to take his mind off of the work at hand. He had been told by one of his superiors to collect for them a weapon, a very specific one.

Heaven and Hell were the only places where souls were traded like humans trade money, collected and used for collateral… consumed as a power source.  What did Dean call that sort of thing?  _Eating your Wheaties_? 

Someone in Heaven had need of a very specific soul. 

Years ago he would have met the orders with silent and swift action, never questioning- however that was before he had met the Winchesters and now there was hesitation within him, questions as to whether or not this was an order he should even follow. 

Heresy. 

Open rebellion by inaction alone.

He watched as the high winds tore fronds from the palm trees along the coast. 

There were no people here now; they had all cleared out hours and days before when the warnings of the storm first came in. There was no one to worry about, no one in danger.

So he watched. 

He let himself get lost in the fury because it was easier than doing the job he had been tasked with.

In his pocket, his phone started to ring- either Sam or Dean, they were the only people who would ever call him. Who could call him. He didn’t need to answer the phone, he simply raised his wings and threw himself back towards the brothers who undoubtedly needed him for something.

It was another welcome distraction.

Both hunters looked at him, shoulders tense, hands near their weapons, then visibly relaxed. 

“Were you out swimming, Cas?” Dean lowered his phone, setting it on the room’s table.

“No.” He frowned, not understanding why the question was being asked. 

“You’re… soaking wet, man.” 

Sam laughed for some reason and Castiel looked down at himself, at his clothes drenched dark with rain water. 

“I was in a hurricane.” He explained simply. “What did you need?”

Dean was moving away from the table, walking towards the bathroom as he spoke. “Can you blink us over to Chicago?” 

“Yes?”  It was a stupid question. He knew the town called Chicago, it wasn’t too far away. It would be a very simple matter to bring the brothers there. 

Coming back into the room, Dean smiled at him, just that wide open smile of his that set his eyes sparkling. He held out a towel, easily tossing it over Castiel’s head.

“Why?” The Angel asked simply.

But Dean didn’t answer him, just started scrubbing the moisture from his hair with the scratchy terrycloth.  

Sam’s voice came to him under the shroud. “The girl found yesterday was taken from the Botanical Gardens in Chicago- we wanted to go look around, see if we can’t find something from where she was taken.”

“That seems like a logical-  _Dean_ , it is very difficult to talk while you are-” The towel was lifted and he was blinking into the sudden brightness. “Thank you.” 

“Welcome.” Dean pulled the towel down around his shoulders, it was such a simple, gentle movement.  He was so close, warm and smelling like sweat and gunpowder,  a mixture of scents that Castiel had come to associate with the hunter, and he enjoyed it much more than he thought might be appropriate.

“Should I take you now?”

Dean pulled the towel tight, making fists, a strangely curling smile forming on the corners of his lips. “Well, I wouldn’t mind but I don’t think Sam would approve-”

“Give it a rest, Dean.” Sam interrupted loudly.

There was subtext of some sort that the Angel was missing, but he didn’t bother to ask for clarification. These sorts of things tended to get lost on him.

“Yeah, Cas.” Sam stood, tucking his flat little computer into a bag that hung over his shoulder. “We’re good to go, if you don’t mind.”

The room was small, he didn’t have to change where he stood to be able to reach out and touch both brothers- Sam’s forearm, Dean’s cheek. One strong beat of his wings and the three of them stood in a secluded corner of the Chicago Botanic Gardens. It was a nice, quiet bend of the hedge maze, no visitors in sight.

The brothers looked around, taking time to get their bearings. 

Dean looked over at Castiel, eyes curiously wide. “Where…?”  

The Angel took a slow breath, feeling frustrated that the hunter would even consider that they had come to somewhere other than where they had asked to be taken. He didn’t like his accuracy or abilities brought into question. Perhaps that was pride rearing its head and such a feeling was not a sin he wanted to embrace. He released the brothers and took a step back.

“It’s the Botanical Gardens, Dean.” Sam said with the kind of annoyance that Castiel was holding in. “You don’t remember coming here when we were kids?”

“It might surprise you to know that I don’t remember all the incredibly lame gardens and zoos that you dragged me to when we were kids.” Dean shielded his gaze from the noonday sun.

“They weren’t lame.” Sam sounded defensive, the brothers immediately getting lost in their usual petty arguments. “They were educational.”

Dean rolled his eyes and turned slowly as if trying to decide on the best path to take out of the maze. “You’re such a dweebe.” And the brother’s shared a look that was anything but friendly- but at the same time, very familiar.

Castiel realized that he was not needed here any longer. There was nothing that he could add to their squabbling.  “I- have business that I must return to.”

Dean nodded once before seeming to finally pick path of escape and glancing back over his shoulder.  “Can we call you for a ride home?” 

“I will try to come when you need me.” He wasn’t sure how long the brothers intended to take in this city, he didn’t know how long he would need to do the task he had been given… if he would even be able to do it.

“Fair enough.” Dean gave him a tight lipped smile. “Thanks.”

Castiel nodded and with a rush of wind and wings he was back in Florida- further inland than before, further from the storm. It was safer from the wrath of nature and here is where humans remained, where they had fled for shelter. Here is where he could find the weapon he was sent to collect.


	20. Chapter 20

They landed with a swirl of air, grass clippings and a few dry leaves tossed about in a dervish. Dean didn’t know what he had been expecting, maybe a park or something, not these weirdly tall walls of shrubbery. It looked like a… hedgemaze? Except Dean had never been inside of one before, only seen them in movies. It was like a well lit scene from the  _Shining_.

“Where…?”  He looked to Cas who was still holding his cheek so gently, so inappropriately intimate for public. 

Cas ruffled in response, his eyes narrowing slightly and Dean had no idea what he had done wrong. The Angel took a step back, letting go of the brothers and frowning as deeply as he could, little pinched spot between his eyes.

Sam sighed in annoyance, because apparently Dean’s half question was enough to piss everyone off.  “It’s the Botanical Gardens, Dean. You don’t remember coming here when we were kids?”

Dean rolled his eyes and started looking for a way out. “It might surprise you to know that I don’t remember all the incredibly lame gardens and zoos that you dragged me to when we were little.” 

Which was the biggest lie Dean had told in days. They came here when Sam was nine. His kid brother had been bummed to have abandoned his fifth grade class in Austin the same week that they were supposed to have a fieldtrip to the zoo. They were stuck in Chicago while their dad was on a hunt. It was at the tail end of a snow storm and even if it was about as far as you could get from a zoo, Dean had taken his brother here. He let Sammy look at the withered trees and pines heavy with snow. They had made snow angels near the icy waterfall in the Japanese gardens. Thrown hastily made snow balls at each other until they got kicked out. Yeah. He remembered. But Sam didn’t need to know that his big brother was overly sentimental at times. 

“They weren’t lame.” Sam got all defensive. “They were educational.”

 “You’re such a dweebe.” He said, because he was supposed to.

 And Sam glowered at him, bitch-face out in full force.

 “I- have business that I must return to.” Cas gently stepped between them, breaking their line of sight.

“Can we call you for a ride home?” Dean asked, knowing the answer beforehand. He wanted to know what Cas had to do that was so urgent- but part of him suspected that he would regret the answer.

“I will try to come when you need me.” Which was as good as a yes.

“Fair enough.” Dean was tempted to give Cas a kiss goodbye, but knew that it would likely result in a fistfight between him and Sam somehow, there was just this  _mood_  in the air. “Thanks.”

Castiel nodded once then buggered off. Gone in an instant and Dean was left alone with his brooding brother. Now was the time to wander around in a five mile garden looking for who knows what while the sun just kept beating down, down, down. 

Things kept getting better. 

The maze wasn’t too hard to get out of, so at least they had that going for them. Sam had nothing to say to him, just hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched as he lead the way. They simply turned right each time they hit an intersection until the hedge broke and they were given an expanse of green. Trees and flowers and gently sloping inclines which were perfect for children to roll down. 

Dean couldn’t keep from smiling as a herd of school aged children did just that. Laughing and rolling, getting grass stains all over them as tired looking adults watched from a distance. It made Dean think of coming here with Sammy, seeing his wide eyed kid brother laughing and running like he didn’t have a care in the whole wide world. Dean looked up at his giant of a brother who glanced down at him with a non-expression. And it was a testament as to how time changed all things- for better or worse.

“It’s summer.” Sam said glancing sideways at the fifteen or so screaming youngsters. “Shouldn’t be any fieldtrips going on.”

“Day care?” Dean suggested with a shrug. Did it actually matter  _why_  the kids were here?

“Youth group maybe? Summer camp?” Sam shrugged too. “We should check, see if the girl we found was here with one of them.”

Ah. There was some reasoning to Sam’s line of questioning. 

Dean wished that they had thought to wear suits. Questioning people went a lot easier if you were pretending to be police. 

Oh well. They would improvise. They were good at it.

As it turned out, Kylee Colton, the girl that had been dumped in the empty lot behind the Ralph’s had been part of Junior Adventurer Summer camp. She had been one of ‘big sisters’ of the group, a little camp counselor in training. Always friendly and outgoing, she had been in the program every summer since she was seven. This information was all together useless other than serving to put Dean in a fantastically bad mood. Sam seemed to suffer in the same way and they were both dragging their feet as they made their way over the lawns. 

“What bothers me most about this,” Dean was grinding his teeth as he spoke, “is that she went missing a week ago.”

Sam made a frustrated noise, but that apparently was the whole summation of his input.

“So the creep’s got her for a week and then he dumps her out in Millington. If you’re gunna dump a body why not cross state lines, why only go a few hours away? I mean- he just left her in a field. Who does that?”

“Someone who obviously doesn’t think he’s going to get caught.” Sam answered with some authority before heading down a little side path marked with a sign saying ‘Butterflies and Blooms’. It was the last place anyone had seen Kylee and it was as good as any where to start looking. “I’m more concerned with why he kept her for a whole week. The coroner said the girl couldn’t have been dead more than twelve hours.”

Just like that, Dean was bristling. The skin on the back of his neck prickling. 

There was nothing about this case that sat well with him. 

Dean would have appreciated the chunk of gardens that they found themselves in if he had been about twenty years younger and born with two X chromosomes instead of one. Brightly colored flowers as far as the eye could see, all reds and yellows and oranges, piercingly bright under the summer sun. It was like being dropped in the middle of a kaleidoscope, and not in a fun way.

“Man, how are we supposed to find anything in this mess?” He flailed an arm in the direction of the spill of petals.

Sam shrugged, the muscle in his jaw popping as he ground his teeth. 

The damning part of it was that even if there was something to find, the whole place had been combed over by local law enforcement after the girl first went missing. It would be a crap shoot for them to find any evidence left behind after a week outdoors. If the baddie was human and the police hadn’t found anything than chances were then the brothers wouldn’t either. They weren’t trained for this kind of thing. They were raised to see monsters not humans. 

And everything that Dean had seen so far had pointed to human.

He didn’t know what they hoped to find.

The two of them managed to cover surprisingly little ground, sort of ducking into the tree line to find shade as well as a possible vantage point that a creepy child-thief would stand and make plans from.

A harried looking woman cam darting by, short dark hair damp on her temples, sweat on her face. “Have you two seen Emily?”

“Who?” Sam sort of reached out to her, like he might catch her shoulder and keep her still, somehow calm her agitated movements.

“My daughter.” Her voice broke with a note of panic. “I can’t find her.” 

“We’ll help you look.” Dean offered quickly. 

Emily was nine.

Her hair had been in braids.

She was wearing green shorts and a pink top.

Neither of the brothers, or the small group of people who also got roped into searching, found a single child matching that description. 

It didn’t take long before police were swarming the gardens. On a normal day, a missing kid report would have granted a handful of security guards looking, but not this close after Kylee’s disappearance. The local law enforcement seemed to be taking it very seriously.

Two little girls missing within a week of each other? 

It was bad news in spades. 

The premises were large enough that it was possible that the girl who had been taken was still here somewhere. And just like that, the gardens went into lockdown. Nobody out.

The Winchesters were successfully stranded until they called for angelic transport. So they kept looking. It was better than just standing around.

Searching a garden lousy with police was no easy task, especially not when the very serious officers were doing their best to wrangle all the tourists into neat little pods. Sam used his obscene height to keep an eye on things while the two of them slipped off into the tree line, trying to look lost instead of like they were skulking- just in case someone saw them. 

“You think they’re still here?” Sam asked softly, looking up into the canopy like there might be someone lurking above them.

“Kid was missing for maybe ten minutes before mom started freaking out.” Dean held his shoulders too tight, back starting to hurt. “Twenty minutes later they got the place locked down. Half an hour’s more than enough time to get out if you need to.” 

“Nice positive thinking, Dean.”

“ ‘m just sayin’. Don’t want to waste our time looking around here when this guy’s already long gone.” He hated the idea of giving this son of a bitch a head start, but at the same time he had no idea where to go at this point. This was police business. It was a human they were hunting and humans left behind different traces than monsters.

Likewise, police weren’t trained to look for signs of things that go bump in the night.

Dean stuttered to a stop, his boots sinking into the moss and mud. “Does that look like something to you?”

Sam stopped too, gaze following Dean’s across the carefully planned natural setting, artfully fallen logs and discarded stones meant to resemble natural chaos despite the fact that it had all been strategically laid out by a small army of landscapers.  

Three very dead birds lay in the mud, wings spread wide, the tips all touching to form a crude triangle. They weren’t just dead- they were surgically dead. High school science lab dead. Tiny feathered stomachs cut open, intestines pulled out and lumped together in a meaty red pile between the six curled bird feet. The rocks nearby and tree trunks had very light chalk markings drawn in careful, sharp lines.

The whole thing screamed ‘ritual’. But at the same time it was on such a small scale, about a two foot radius of bad just tucked in among the undergrowth. It was halfway to a miracle that they stumbled across it at all.

“That’s…” Sam huffed slightly then made an aborted noise low in his throat. “Oh, god. It smells awful.”

Dean was grateful that he was upwind, only getting a hint of… well, it was rank whatever it was. He put the back of his wrist to his nose, trying to breathe through his mouth. It was like really bad meat or really good cheese. Something evil smelling to be sure, but the birds couldn’t have been dead long enough to start rotting. So the smell must have been from something else.

Sam kept making that soft retching noise, pulling out his phone and snapping a handful of pictures of the birds and white scribbles, presumably so he could do some reference checking when they got back to their motel.

“It’s something new at least.” His kid brother offered uncomfortably. Looking for some kind of silver lining. Slowly, he toed at one of the birds and like a nightmare the damn thing started to twitch, unholy squabbling noise as it flounder about in the mud.

Dean unwillingly took a step back, revulsion heavy in his stomach. “Son of a- Jesus Christ, make it stop.”

“I didn’t-“ Sam’s voice had gone a little high, and seemingly in a moment of clarity and good decision making, Sammy stomped one heavy boot down on the thing, silencing it with a moist crunch of bone. 

“Dude.” Dean was shaking his head, eying the other two birds warily, not trusting them.

Sam just kept shaking his head, wiping the bits of bird off in the grass and leaves. It could have only been Dean’s imagination but his brother looked paler than normal, eyes a little too wide. Killing animals had never set well with Sam- which was weird when you really think about it, but now was not the time to bring it up.

Dean wiped at his nose again. Under the heat and the blanket of smell, he could feel his brain struggling to fit this new unpleasantness in with the rest of what they had so far. Grave desecration, collecting human body parts, animal … sacrifice? Dean felt a theme here, one he was uncomfortably familiar with. 

“Well, Sammy-“

“Witches?” Apparently his genius of a brother had also arrived at the same conclusion.

“That’s what I’m thinking.” It was a direction which was better than they had had for the past few weeks, but witches weren’t the easiest things to hunt down. Like humans they tended to leave odd trails to follow. Not claw marks, or sulfur, or burns. But there would be other signs. If the brothers were lucky at all there would something else to find. Something that would help lead them to whoever was doing this before another little girl was found dead under the hot, hot sun.


	21. Chapter 21

For a dead bird, the thing sure made a lot of noise. The mutilated corpse weakly flopping about like a landed fish, sharp anemic sounds from its slit throat. Sam thought that he might be sick. The smell had been bad enough, but now this?

 “Son of a- Jesus Christ, make it stop.” Dean demanded like this whole thing was his brother’s fault and now he expected Sam to just fix it.

“I didn’t-“ But arguing wasn’t going to stop the cries of the suffering creature. Sam did the only humane thing he could think of. He stomped the bird, silencing it with a firm crunch of bone. And he really was going to be sick now. 

“Dude.” His brother said slowly, somewhere between impressed and disturbed.

Sam scraped his shoe on the grass and rocks, trying in vain to clean the bottom of his boot. He could feel his brain struggling to find the logical side of things, to think about  _why_  someone would do this instead of  _how_  someone could do this. It helped to keep him sane.

The spread corpses, the chalk symbols. It was all very ritualistic, and Sam hated that fact. Monsters didn’t need rituals. The magics and powers that they used tended to be part of them, something they were born with. Humans were different. Humans didn’t come preprogrammed; they needed to draw on something else if they wanted to do anything ‘special’. Anything like this.

Though, as a non magical practitioner, Sam had no clue what  _this_  was. 

But that’s why he had the internet and more stolen library books than any one man should possess. He had pilfered himself a particularly nasty little book somewhere in Massachusetts about a year ago, hand written and bound in pale leather. It wasn’t from a public library, but a private collection. The things inside of it were dark, bad things, pacts and rituals all designed to cater to people who didn’t value their souls. Sam kept it in the wheelwell of the Impala in a little iron cigar case. He didn’t know for cretin if it kept the bad mojo in, but it made him feel better. 

He wasn’t excited about getting it back out, but something told Sam that it might come in handy for this particular mess. He wasn’t excited about the prospect of opening the thing again. For more than one reason.

The book had obviously been made with ill intent. But really it all boiled down to the simple fact that Dean had been right. They were dealing with humans.

Dean had that look on his smarmy face, like he knew what was up, putting things together as fast as Sam. There was that specific ‘I told you so’ tone to his voice when he started with, “Well, Sammy-“

“Witches?” He cut his brother off, not interested in listening to him gloat. 

“That’s what I’m thinking.” Dean said with a small frown, a little wind taken from his sails.

“It makes sense.”

“Does it now?” Dean narrowed his eyes, sarcastic jerk that he was.

“You’ve got all the makings of a first class witch’s garden here.” Sam looked at the plants nearby, recognizing a few of them. Out of context there had been nothing strange about them, but when you added witches to the mix? “You’ve got cypress trees, clover, elecampane.” He pointed to each plant in turn.

“Elecama-what now?” Dean was giving him a very different look, that ‘how do you even know these things’ look that he used less and less often over the years.

“The little yellow flowers.” He pointed again, choosing to ignore the look for brevity’s sake. “The Gardens have about any kind of potion herb a witch could want.”

“There is something very wrong with you.” Dean said looking at the daisy like flowers, and Sam wasn’t sure if his brother was talking to him or the plant. He looked over, eyes a little glassy from the heat. “So what are you thinking, boy genius?”

“Person we’re looking for might work here or have a season pass?” He half asked, waiting to see that little nod of agreement from his big brother before continuing.  “It’s a lot easier than growing your own garden at home. We should see if… if any of the employees also live in Millington.” And that didn’t feel right to him, because who would commute so far for a job, or dump a body so near their home.

But Dean was already clapping him on the back and smiling. “Sounds like you get to go digging in personnel files.”

“Me?” He might have laughed a little, startled, but not particularly surprised that Dean was giving him the illegal part of the job. “And what are you going to be doing?”

“Playing look out.” Dean showed a glint of teeth, slapping him on the back again.

Sam would have argued, but with the Gardens on lockdown it was probably a good idea.

Nothing about this case had ever set right with Sam, which was one of the reasons he had wanted it in the first place. There was nothing normal about any of it. It was almost a relief when he didn’t find any employee that lived in Millington. It was the only thing that made sense so far. 

If you’re going to dump a body you don’t do it in a small town where everyone gets to see it. It would have made a lot more sense to leave the body either here in Chicago or over state lines where there would be jurisdiction interference once police got involved.  Not that Sam had a lot of experience with hiding bodies… it was more of an academic interest… 

He came out of the HR room, hands in his pockets, trying to look as casual as he could. Dean was suddenly at his side, keeping pace with easy strides. 

“Well?”

“Nothing.” Sam said softly.

“Wanna check out the season passes?”

“We should-”

“Hey.” There was a police officer at the end of the hall, looking more startled than anything else. “You guys can’t be back here.

Sam took a chance. “We just came by to pick up our paychecks.” He was hoping that they could just pretend to be employees themselves. Day off, casual clothes, just here for all kinds of innocent things.

The police officer nodded once, accepting the lie too easily. “You guys still can’t be back here. We’ve got an Amber Alert up. Everyone needs to come to the Pavilion.”

The brothers had very purposefully skirted the Pavilion to come into the main office. They followed along with the nice officer, because if they didn’t they would likely get arrested for all the wrong reasons. 

It was a damn waste of time- but what else could they do?

So they stood in the crowd, though Dean was never good at waiting.

“Man,” his big brother grumbled for the hundredth time in the last half hour. “I’m gunna get a sun burn out here.”

“I forgot you were such a delicate little flower.” Sam gave him the best side-eye he could. He remembered summers when they were kids, a lake out in Connecticut, clear as glass. The two of them spent hours throwing each other in the water, seeing who could hold their breaths the longest, normal kid stuff. Dean had been redder than a lobster by day two. He later peeled, then freckled, then tanned. Normal course of action. But it seemed that every summer that Dean still managed to get himself burned on some level or another. 

“Fuck off.” Dean muttered then immediately said something apologetic to a nearby mother and child, the woman giving him a homicidal look.

Sam smiled and did his best to hide it.

“Maybe I should just call Cas.” Dean suggested, something else he had been saying a lot since they had been corralled back into the mass of people.

“You think that will go over well in a large crowd?” Sam tried to imagine what sort of stir the Angel descending into their midst would cause.

“Dude’s sneaky. He’d find a way to get us out without it being weird.”

Sam sighed, making a point not to look at his brother as he spoke, using his height to scan the fringes of the crowd that they had become part of. “Dean,  _everything_  he does is weird.”

“Yeah, and the people you date are always so normal.” It was almost sweet how defensive Dean could get, and so quickly.

“Don’t get me wrong. I like Cas.” Sam didn’t do as good of a job at hiding his smile this time. “I’m just saying he’s a bit off is all.”

“It’s in a good way.” The defensive tone hadn’t left.

“It’s in a good way.” Sam repeated gently.

People were sorted through, the police getting background info on everyone, checking IDs. It was all very systematic and drawn out and he reconsidered quite a few times telling Dean to go ahead and call his strange little boyfriend- but Sam was watching the crowd. He had made a point to wait near where the police were questioning people. It left them standing in the relentless sun instead of under the shelter of the pavilion, but it made it so that Sam could hear everything everyone said. Names, addresses, reasons for visiting the Gardens. 

If the person they were looking for was still here, Sam wanted to see them. He felt like he would somehow recognize them, and that didn’t make sense- but Sam had spent a lifetime looking for monsters walking out in the open and hiding in shadows. Maybe he was more qualified than others.

There was a girl, college age, dark hair, sleepy eyes. She was talking to a police man, holding hands with who could only be a younger sister, same dark hair, and same sleepy eyes.

“Dean.” Sam elbowed his brother.

“What?” Angry sharp word from his brother.

“That girl talking to the officer.”

“Nah, not my type.”

Sam was frowning, feeling a tickle of some kind in the back of his head. “She looks familiar.”

“Not ringing any bells.”

She was for Sam- some kind of bell, though it wasn’t big or loud.

Sam did what he could to listen to her name, her address. Lauren Ede, her sister was Katie. They lived out in Aurora and had driven up here for an afternoon. Katie said nothing, just held her big sisters hand, swaying slightly, sort of dancing in place but lazier, her clothes a bit too big, her knees dirty where they peeked out under her loose blue sundress. 

Sam didn’t know any Laurens, not a single one- but she still looked familiar to him. The officer let her and her little sister through.

“She’s a bit young for you.” Dean noted, but his tone wasn’t as joking as it could have been. 

“Maybe I saw her when I was out in Aurora.”

“Visiting your lady coroner?” Dean seemed caught up on that fact for some reason. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen a female coroner before. Then again, Dean seemed to enjoy being an ass for no good reason.

“Must have been. But I don’t think it was from the hospital… maybe the bar.” He mulled it over, thinking out loud.

“Wait up. You took the mortician to a  _bar_?” Dean laughed. “When did you manage that?”

“After the autopsy.” Sam felt distracted, struggling with the weird feeling that he knew the girl from somewhere. 

“Dude, that’s… that’s weird, even for you.” It seemed a nice distraction for Dean, laughing at his brother. “But hey, get it where you can. I mean-”

“She gave me coffee.” Sam suddenly remembered.

“At the bar?” Dean wrinkled his nose, obviously bothered by the idea.

“No.” Sam pushed past his brother, starting to move through the crowd. “At the Starbucks this morning.”


	22. Chapter 22

Castiel stood in the spotlessly clean white room, looking into the plexiglas box that held one of the smallest babies he had ever seen. The little name card on the side of her box read Evangeline Carter. Her hair was light, wispy curls around a face too thin. She would have comfortably fit in his two hands, and he found himself fighting down the urge to reach for her.

An innocent soul, one with such potential. 

She would do great things if she lived to adulthood. 

Great and glorious things.

If

 _If_  she lived to adulthood.

So much potential in such a small body.

A soul like hers would be strength to whoever held it.

He could understand why his brother wanted it, but even still… how could they expect him to separate her beautiful soul from her tiny body?

Three hours he had been staring at her, invisible as the nurses came and went, as Evangeline’s mother left to get a coffee and came back to fall asleep, curled in the chair beside the incubator. 

Castiel knew what he should do. He should do what he had been told. An order was an order- but in his mind he heard Dean’s disapproval  _‘it’s a kid, Cas. What’s wrong with you? You can’t hurt a kid.’_  Castiel knew the exact expression of volatile anger that Dean would wear. At some point, the Angel had internalized Dean. 

It was probably a bad sign.

Humanity taking its toll on Castiel.

He had spent far too long among the humans. 

At least that is what his brothers told him.

Maybe they were right, but even so, Castiel struggled to see the harm in it.

Hesitating to kill a child was not a bad thing.

That is what he told himself.

For the past three hours that is what he told himself.

But still he stood. 

Still he fought with himself.

Evangeline had woken, eyes like blue glass, looking up into Castiel’s face. It was a little unnerving that she could see him, but only because it was so rare that anyone could when he didn’t want to be seen. Children, especially ones so new to this world, always seemed to be an exception to that rule. 

He gently smiled down at her though she did not smile back. She was only four days old. Perhaps she had not learned how to yet.

And why was Castiel still here?

He couldn’t do this.

He couldn’t.

But he was expected to.

An order was an order.

Gone were the days when he  _could_  just follow orders without question. 

Things certainly were easier then.

He almost missed that lifetime of blind faith.

Almost.

He reached into the incubator, lightly touching the infant’s tiny little hand, her perfect fingers, mindful of the many little tubes and wires and sensors attached to her body.

A perfect interruption came to his conflicting thoughts. Dean was calling him, Castiel’s cell phone ringing merrily. It felt like an intervention. His eyes close in silent thanks and he fled the hospital, rushing to the hunter’s side, relieved to be free of the expectations of divine orders. 

Months ago Castiel had carved sigils into both brothers’ bones, and whereas he could not pull himself directly to their sides, he could go to the phone that was calling him. The principle was simple enough. It had never gone wrong before. 

But as he folded his wings tightly to his back and looked around him it was not in the same tranquil gardens where he had left the Winchesters in which he now stood. 

It also was not Dean holding Dean’s phone. 

Dean  _was_  there, in a heap on the dirty floor of a small room, vibrant red blood over the left half of his face. Dean had not called Castiel. He was in no state for such things. 

Castiel wanted to rush to his friend’s side, to heal him, to put a hand over his chest and feel the soft rise and fall, to assure himself that Dean would be alright. But the person who had called him was a far more pressing concern. She was a young girl, dark hair, dark eyes, clutching the hunter’s phone in her tiny hands.

“He said he was calling for help.” Her voice was reedy, high with fear. “You’re not a policeman.” The way she said it was not like she had expected a policeman and was disappointed, so much as she feared what he might be instead.

“No. I am an Angel of the Lord.”

Her lip trembled slightly. She did not seem to take comfort in his statement. Her eyes darted from Castiel to a spot behind him, and though he desperately wanted to go to Dean, every instinct he had was stressing how much more important it was for him to turn around.

Another girl stood there, similar in face to the child, but older. Unlike the one who held the phone, this one was smiling. 

“An Angel?” She asked, looking up at him. Her face was bruised, her lip split.

She would be fine. Her injuries were all superficial. Dean needed him more. 

“Yes.” He answered distractedly, turning away from her to go to his friend. 

“Perfect.” 

And from the corner of his eye he caught a flash of a weapon, dully noting that it was already wet with Dean’s blood, before the young woman clubbed him over the head with it.

By all rights he should have shrugged off the attack, letting it roll off of him, before turning to SMITE her- but there was a power in that weapon, something not meant for humans to wield. Something wicked and dark and he felt it crack against his skull with an exquisite wash of pain and an overwhelming feeling of wrongness before the world went black.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter that I'm reediting and posting tonight. I'll get the rest up tomorrow <3

Dean had followed Sam to some bad places over the years. There was this bar in the outskirts of Detroit a few years back- crawling with almost comically stereotyped mobsters. Dean ended up getting shot in the stomach. Or that used book store up in Oregon, it was five stories tall and the brothers had been lost in there for hours. Or that church somewhere back East, and Dean had ended up sitting beside someone’s withered old grandmother who kept slipping him ancient hard candies while he waited for his brother to finish… whatever Sam had been doing in there for practically an eternity.

This was actually worse than any of those. At least the church had some candy.  All this place had was a hole in the floor that had managed to eat his kid brother, and spiders. It had a fair amount of the latter… which was a bit better than having an ungodly amount of rotted floorboards which lead to a basement with no visible means of escape.

“This isn’t funny, Dean.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

“You’re smiling.”

“I’m just glad I’m not the one in the hole.”

“I think I broke my ankle.”

Maybe Dean had found it just a  _little_  funny up until that moment. “Really?” Because that’s all Dean needed right now. Getting into this damn house hadn’t been hard enough in the first place, now he would have to carry his brother back out of it. And Sam was many things, but he wasn’t easy to carry.

Chicago was a strange kind of city. Back in the late 18oo’s practically the whole thing burned down in a fire that lasted three days. They had rebuilt, because people always rebuild. A new city spreading out over the ash and charred wood. That was all a hundred years ago, but the skeletons of that old city were still there. Underground. 

Dean liked to pretend that they weren’t, because three hundred some odd people had died in that fire long ago and if there was any place to be good and haunted, it was the Underground. 

He was laying on his stomach, looking down into the dark pit that had swallowed his brother and questioned again why he had been willing to follow Sam down here. 

It was where the sleepy eyed barista had taken the little girl and so this is where the brothers had followed. 

It wasn’t going well so far.

“You sure there’s no stairs or anything down there?” Dean did his best to keep his voice low. They had followed someone down here, and he was still fairly certain that their presence had stayed undetected- despite the awful noise that Sam had made when the floor opened up under him. 

Sam glared upward in the half light, face pinched and pale with pain. 

“I’m going to find a rope or something.” Dean offered as he got to his feet. 

“ _Rope_?” Sam sounded more irritated than he had any right to, because Dean was trying to help him. “Where are you going to find rope?”

“Maybe she keeps her spell bits here.” Dean suggested, looking up and down the hall for what might be the best direction to find rope. He didn’t know if the girl that Sam had pointed out in the Gardens had been a witch or what- but if she was the one who dosed Sam’s drink she certainly wasn’t here doing charity work. Besides, a burnt out shell of a house in the Undergrounds of Chicago was not exactly the kind of place that any normal or well meaning young girl should live, or take her sister for that matter. 

“You think she has  _rope_  around for spell casting?”

“Stop your whining. I’ll be right back.” He took two steps away before turning around and peeking down at Sam. “And if you see little miss coffee shop again, don’t let her drug you this time.”

Sam managed to glare even harder somehow. 

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t a good time for such things. But Dean found himself smiling none the less. He couldn’t always be the best big brother in the world. Sometimes he was just happy that it was someone other than him in the hole for once.

Sam would be fine. It was only an ankle.

Though getting poisoned, in a car accident, and breaking a leg all in the same day really meant that Sam had earned himself a drink when this was over.

Dean didn’t move with any particular care through the house- oh, he was mindful of the floor boards, Sam had urged that particular caution. But Dean wasn’t too worried about keeping out of sight. He wasn’t afraid of the dark haired girl. Maybe she had dumped some poison flowers in Sam’s coffee that morning. Hell, maybe she had even killed those birds earlier today- and maybe she had something to do with the grave robbing, or the little girl found in the lot yesterday… but Dean couldn’t accept the idea that the wisp of a girl they had followed down here was the orchestrator for the whole thing. Just involved somehow. 

Which meant that she could be part of a coven, or be following a powerful someone’s orders.

Dean hesitated, not liking where that particular train of thought was taking him. He frowned and moved a little more slowly. Peering around the corners as he went. Better safe than sorry.

As abandoned buildings go, this one was fairly clean. It was dusty and stained, but there wasn’t garbage. No one had been squatting here. There wasn’t any graffiti on the walls.  It was sort of nice in an undisturbed kind of way. 

Though, undisturbed was subjective, because Dean could see little footprints in the build up dust liming the floors.  Two sets, far too small to belong to either Dean or Sam, and for lack of better direction, Dean took a sharp turn down a side hall and followed those prints. His flashlight found a door- which unto itself wasn’t anything too exciting, except for the fact that it was the first one that he had come across since him and his brother clamored down an old ladder into the Underground. Two footprints went beneath the door, only one pair left further down the hall.   

Dean leaned against the door, putting his ear to the smooth, new wood. A new door in an old house and it conducted sound as good as any tuning fork. 

There was no one talking on the other side. There was however someone crying. Tiny little sobs and sniffles.

There are possibly people who have existed since time started who can just sit by idly while listening to a child crying. Dean was not one of those. He didn’t even really like kids, but that didn’t mean that he could ignore them when they were crying. 

He wasn’t a monster.

He was, on the other hand, the kind of person who you could probably pull one of those tricks on like that guy did back in the seventies out in California- where he would leave a tape recorder on the doorsteps of women's homes, playing the sound of a baby crying and when they came out to see what was wrong he would kidnap them. It took a special kind of badguy to play on maternal weaknesses like that.

Or paternal weaknesses as the case may be.

Dean carefully opened the door.

There was the little girl from the Gardens. The barista’s kid sister in her dirty clothes that were all kinds of the wrong size. She was sitting in the corner, scrubbing tears from her face with filthy hands, smearing dust and dirt over her round cheeks.  She looked up as the door opened, dark eyes wide and fearful as she pressed herself further into the corner, trying to make herself as small as possible. 

“Hey there.” Dean found himself immediately curling forward, making himself smaller as well. He struggled to remember her name, but he had never been all that good with girl’s names. “Katie?” Maybe that was right. “I’m Dean.” He took a few small steps into the room getting his back away from the empty hallway, hugging the wall and keeping a comfortable distance between the two of them. “Are you ok?”

She sniffled again.

It wasn’t much of an answer.

“Are you hurt?”

“I’m Emily.” Her voice was about as small as she was.

“That’s a real nice name.” It was also the name of the girl who had gone missing this afternoon. Dean wasn’t an idiot. He had seen witch’s spells do things far more complex and frightening than slightly altering the appearance of a little girl. It was a nice easy way to sneak a kid out of the Gardens when everyone was looking for her. Just turn her into a different kid. When he thought about it, during the police questioning the girl had looked half asleep, swaying and confused while the men in uniforms talked to the 'older girl'. A little cosmetic spell, a change of clothes and a mild sedative. As evil kidnapping plans went it was actually fairly simple. 

He moved closer, crouching down just out of arm’s reach. “Are you hurt, Emily?”

She shook her head, even though Dean could see blood on her knees. She looked a little scuffed up, but nothing too bad.

“I’m going to get you out of here, ok?” He couldn’t think of anything that would make him happier at that moment. 

“She told them she was my sister.” Emily whispered. “She’s not my sister.”

Dean nodded earnestly and held a hand out to her. “I know.” In his mind he was struggling to come up with the best plan to get the little girl and Sam out of here and at the same time catch the crazy little barista who had brought them all together. 

Emily looked at him with some uncertainty, sniffling again and wiping at her face.

“Come on.” He honestly wanted to keep the kid safe, but he was also losing patience. 

“No.” She kind of squeaked at him, or more specifically at something behind him and before Dean could turn to face what, or whoever had crept up on him with admirable levels of stealth, he felt a sharp crack to the left side of his head and everything exploded. He slumped, the wall catching him as he struggled against the nothingness that was trying to drag him down. 

He caught a blurring glimpse of a young girl with dark hair and sleepy eyes, but she wouldn’t stay in focus, slipping in and out. Sometimes there was just one of her, sometimes there were as many as five, leaning over him, glancing at the handful of little girls crouching in the many corners. 

She was close enough to grab, if Dean could only figure out which one was the real one. 

Dean threw a punch, wild and wide and missed spectacularly. She made a startled noise and backed up. 

“You don’t go down easy, do you?” Her voice was soft, distant sounding to Dean’s still ringing ears. 

“Fuckn’ sucker punched me.” Dean slurred out and used the wall for support as he dragged himself back to his feet.

The girl and her blur of doppelgangers grinned with a flash of white, white teeth and they all hefted some indistinct kind of weapon in their left hands. Like a bat but too short, like a stake but too rounded, like a billyclub but pale except where it was smeared red.  

Dean was bleeding.

“Come a bit closer, pretty boy.” She goaded him. “I’ll do a better job this time.”

She was about a foot shorter than Dean, and couldn’t have weighed more than a buck twenty. He was used to being threatened by considerably more intimidating things than this little girl. It was either that fact, or the slight head injury, but he laughed at her. 

She took another swing at him, the movement pulling her and all her copies into  _one_  far more manageable girl. In a way that was far from courteous, Dean caught her swinging arm below the wrist, and used his free hand to punch her square in the jaw. She toppled like a marionette whose strings had been cut and Dean let her drop to the floor.

He thought it was kind of amusing that he suddenly wished for some rope to tie her up with. Apparently he had this inherent need for the stuff. Maybe he should just start carrying some around with him at all time. Like Indiana Jones. Or was that a whip? It had been years since he had seen one of the movies and getting his bells rung wasn’t helping his recollection abilities any. 

“Come on, kid.” He swayed a little, looking down at Emily who looked even less trusting now. 

“It’s ok.” He urged, trying to smile past the dizzy feeling. “I’m one of the good guys. I’m going to get you back to your mom.”

She didn’t move any closer, and Dean weighed the option of just picking her up and carrying her off- but that would mean leaving behind the girl who had tried to crack his head open. He couldn’t carry them both, and he certainly couldn’t wrangle even one of them and hope to support Sam and his damn broken ankle. He wasn’t so sure he could even support himself at this point.

He got out his phone and he saw something flicker over Emily’s face. 

“Are you going to call the police?”

“I’m going to call for help.” He assured the kid with what he hoped was a comforting smile. He hit the speed dial for Cas in the same instant as he heard a noise from the other side of the room. He turned as the older girl, now sitting upright on the floor, swung her little weapon and kneecapped Dean. 

Knees break real easily. Surprisingly easily. Five pounds of pressure to dislocate it, about twice that to shatter it. Even without leverage and swinging with her thin little arms, the girl managed to hit Dean with considerably more force than necessary.

He went down as easily as she had, and through his pain he dimly saw grin again before she smashed him over the head one last time.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO, I'm guessing that most of you reading are the usual suspects- and you know my flavor of writing and I shouldn't -need- to put a disclaimer here?  
> But if you're new to me (first off, howdy sailor. Come here often?), this is the part of the story with the graphic depictions of violence. I'm not talking the elevator scene in the Shining, or mounds of viscera, but we rough Cas up a bit- and ye have been warned.

How long had Sam been sitting in his hole? In the dark, quiet of the abandoned house he had no real concept for the passage of time. He checked his phone once more. Sixteen minutes since Dean left to find rope. He should have gone looking for stairs. There had to be a way down. There had to be a way back up. People don’t build subbasements and  _not_  also build ways to get down into them. The younger Winchester couldn’t help but think that the original design for the house must not have called for falling through the floor boards as the only means of entering the room. 

He turned his phone towards the walls, using the soft blue glow as a makeshift flashlight. He didn’t see anything that he hadn’t before. What could have passed for bookcases against one wall, rotted skeleton of a wooden bed frame, something below it which could have been a mattress, a dress form that was upsettingly human shaped at first glance. Broken odds and ends and nothing that would help him. 

Out of frustration he pulled himself up to one foot, wincing and hobbling over to the dress doll. Unsettlingly headless, limbless mannequin. He pulled it to him, leaning against the wall, catching his breath at the minor exertion. Working through the pain was never his favorite thing to do, but he bore his teeth and wrestled the base poll from the doll. It would serve as a crutch. He needed more than one leg if he was going to do anything other than sit here on his ass waiting for Dean who had obviously gotten himself lost.

Holding his phone out with one hand, the makeshift walking stick with the other, he made his way around the room. Each step was jarring and his ankle already felt swollen to twice its size. He had had to take off his tennis shoe about ten minutes ago in an effort to relieve some of the pressure. It hadn’t done much help and now he had only one shoe- but the pain of every little bump and jar had greatly damaged his better decision making skills.

Walking around was torture, but worth it because  _t_ _here it was_. Sam’s way out. It was one of those little crawl spaces, the size of half a door, and he had never seen one other than for attic spaces. The dark little hole mostly behind the old bed frame made Sam’s skin crawl. Walking up stairs would have been bad enough, but crawling? 

Would it be so wrong for him to have a nice day every now and then?

Maybe he should just wait here for Dean to return.

While he swayed there, leaning heavily on his crutch, while his phone went idle and dark, he heard a strange noise in the distance. Soft and muted through so many old walls. 

Someone had shouted, short and cut off. It wasn’t much of a noise, but it sent Sam’s heart racing.

He nudged the bed out of the way, jaw clicking as he ground his teeth around a groan of pain before he carefully lowered himself back to the floor. He had to get on hands and knees to fit his generous frame through the little portal, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he felt the walls and ceiling of the stairway beyond. Maybe the door had been constructed on a ridiculous scale, but the stairwell was made for normal sized people.  

Sam still had to stoop a little (being slightly larger than a  _normal_  sized person) and progress was slow as he struggled not to smack his head on any low hanging support beams, or his leg against the too close walls. He had his doubts to whether or not the architect had been properly accredited. None of the stairs were level, none evenly spaced, made of stone and earth and maybe they had just settled over time… it felt like walking under the influence of heavy medication. 

Even with the light from his phone each step came as a bit of a surprise and he stumbled more than once. He even fell at one point, catching himself in a tangle three steps backwards, knee against one wall, shoulders and arm against the other. He was gasping for breath, and maybe whimpering a little too but luckily there was no one around to hear him. 

Sam still had his pride. 

It wasn’t much.

But it was all he had at this point.

By the time the hunter made it to the top of the stairs he was a sweating, swearing mess. He could hardly put any weight on his  _good_  leg and the bad one felt like a raw, mangled bit of meat more than a foot dangling uselessly from a fractured joint.

He should have waited for Dean. 

Hindsight meant nothing in the face of unrefined stubbornness.

The door back out of the stairs was pleasantly average sized and Sam ducked through it with something closer to a stagger than a hobble.

Of course, Dean was nowhere to be seen. Probably still off looking for his damned rope.

Every inch of his body was demanding that Sam collapse in a little heap on the floor and simply drown in pain, but he pushed on, telling himself that it would be worth it in the end. 

The big problem with trying to sneak around a ragged old house was that you needed to be quiet to sneak. There was at least one person in this building who had it in for Sam and would probably be less than happy to find him lurking about. So Sam couldn’t call out to his brother without the risk of giving away his location. 

Hell, he couldn’t even move at anything resembling a normal speed. With only his phone for a light and every step he took singing sweet agony through one side of his body, Sam had to move with more than just paranoid care. He had to shamble down the hall like a fragile, fractured creature. He may as well be crawling for all the speed with which he was able to search for his brother.

It would have been a miracle to find Dean at all.

As it was, Sam had never been granted anything close to a miracle. 

He found Castiel… sort of.

Coming around a corner Sam saw the other man in the weak light of his phone. Sort of just a shadowy shape at first, but as he raised his light higher Sam realized who it was. Familiar features just barely visible at this distance. It wasn’t as reassuring as it could have been. 

Sam would have questioned why the Angel was here at all, but that particular question felt glaringly unimportant in that moment.

Since the Winchesters had met Cas, the heavenly creature had been pulling the two brothers from fires and frying pans alike. Unflappable. Unshakable. Never injured. Never worried. Never much of anything other than frustratingly clam. 

It was very odd to see him hanging upside down, almost on display here at the end of the hall, half hidden by his trench coat, dripping oddly dark blood that stained the cloth and the worn wooden floor alike. Sam didn’t even know that the Angel  _could_  bleed. His body swung in a slow circle, giving Sam a clear view of the mess that used to be his stomach. His shirt had been peeled back and his once pale skin was ruddy and dark with blood and worse things. 

Sam felt sick, and more than a little horrified, but he still took an uneven little hop-step closer.

Cas’ stomach was a mess of cuts.

No. 

Cuts sounded too clean for what had been done here.

This was anything but clean.

Cas had been carved open with all the care and cleanliness of a Halloween pumpkin.  

It wasn’t until the Angel opened his eyes, or at least one of them, to peer around the folds of his coat at Sam that the hunter realized he was even alive.

Castiel was still alive.

Sweet mother of god. 

He had been gutted like one of those birds at the Gardens and just like those pitiful creatures, he was still alive.

The Angel continued to swing, a little more to the left, then back to the right. Painfully slow half circles as the oddly black chain around his ankles twisted and untwisted.

For just a moment, Sam got a full frontal view and in the Angel’s eyes he could see all the pain that wasn’t evident in the lines of Cas’ face. 

“Gun.” Castiel struggled to get that one word out, the low, even tone of his voice the same as always- as if this were an everyday occurrence and nothing to get excited about.

And Sam had a brief moment to himself, to think about how odd of a thing to put so much effort into saying.  _Gun._  Why gun? Why not ‘help’ or ‘hello’ or practically anything other than ‘ _gun_ ’. 

But that was only in the moment before Sam realized that there was a third person in the hall. To be fair, the only light that they had was the on and off again glow of his phone as he struggled to keep the screen from dimming. He was also halfway delirious with pain and not entirely sure he was seeing any of this and hadn’t simply started hallucinating while still sitting in the subbasement waiting for his brother.

Before he really had a chance to get all his thoughts in any kind of proper order the dark haired younger sister from the Gardens was within arm’s reach of him. She was easily less than half Sam’s height, and he would blame that as well as the pain and the darkness for the lack of his noticing her earlier. Cas hanging and bleeding had also been a bit of distraction. 

It wasn’t Sam’s fault that he hadn’t seen her, or the small tray of instruments against the wall near Cas. Bloody, unfamiliar, curving things. Their exact purpose somewhat obscure other than for cutting and gouging. Sam didn’t need specifics. He didn’t need to know if they were surgical, or dental, or just for traditional, mundane torture. They were what they were, and what they were was slick with Angel blood, sitting grotesquely alongside little dark pots and jars with moist lids.

“Oh.” He said smoothly as he fought to get the linguistic part of his brain up and running as fast as his heart. “Are you alright?” 

It was a seemingly logical question to ask the child. There  _was_  a fair amount of blood on her hands and face and dress. It would have made sense for her to  _not_  be all right. Certainly no one else in this hallway was anywhere in the same zip code of ‘all right’.

“Sweet, simple, Sam.” Her voice was surprisingly low. Almost as low as Castiel’s and if nothing else it was not a noise that anyone would ever expect to come from such a small little girl with such an unsettlingly wide smile. “You really shouldn’t have come here.”

“Gun.” Castiel whispered hoarsely.

And Sam thought to himself what a fine idea that was.


	25. Chapter 25

Human bodies are horribly flawed things. Weak, wet mechanisms of bone. The only time that Castiel ever found himself grateful for being bound to a vessel was when he discovered the sorts of things his body could do with Dean’s body. Those were good things, warm, sinuous, human things. 

This was  _not_  those things. 

This was definitively the bad, painful sort of weakness that bodies could be burdened with.

He came awake in phases. Little bits of his vessel growing painfully aware that something was wrong. It started in his legs, a clamp, a tug, the long bones creaking as they pressed together. A sharp, biting pain. Tight. Too tight.  It was like the jaw of some great beast, pulling him, dragging him face down across the floor- then up. Straight up. The pain traveled to his head in an instant. Like a fluid rolling down to the lowest point, to pool behind his eyes. Pain and pressure one in the same thing.

He reached for his Grace, needing to pull it around him like a warm blanket, to block out the wash of very human pain- but it slipped away from him. Like trying to grab hold of the wind. Like trying to hold starlight. And Castiel was left swinging by his ankles, feeling defenseless and suddenly exposed without the protection of his angelic Grace.

He felt… he felt afraid and that in and of itself scared him all the more because the emotion was alien.

“Are all Angels so heavy, or did I just find the double thick one?” A woman’s voice asked from somewhere up near his legs- and that was wrong, but at the same time Castiel didn’t know if he had ever been upside down like this before and it was a bit disorienting. 

“I assume that our weight is relative to the accumulation of our individual Grace, mass of our wings, and the predefined weight of our vessels.” He answered with his eyes still closed tightly, trying to keep the pain inside. To keep it contained else it might start to leak out and consume everything.

“That makes sense.” She shuffled around him and made a few soft metallic noises behind him- seeming to tie off whatever she had used to hoist him up with. “You’re just not what I expected, you know?”

“Most people say that about me.” He thought back to Dean’s less that happy response to first meeting him years ago.  “I’m not sure what it is people expect Angels to look like.”

“More like the Boss, I suppose… maybe a bit more blonde?”

The Angel struggled to open his eyes and one stung and blurred. There was blood in it and it felt far less than pleasant. “Blonde?”

The young woman with dark hair and a split lip, who had smashed him over the head with… whatever she had hit him with, looked up from where she had decided to sit on the floor beside him. She held a pale book in one hand and paler chalk in the other. 

“I just assumed that Angels would be blonde. They always are in old paintings and crap.” She shrugged thin shoulders and began making spider web lines of white around him on the floor.

“What are you doing?” From his limited view he could see the second girl, the younger one who had been holding Dean’s phone. She was lying sprawled on the floor, candles surrounding her. The slow rise and fall of her little chest was the only indication that she was still alive- maybe sleeping, surely unconscious. Castiel was not in the position to decide if this was a good thing or a bad thing for her.

“Getting you ready.” She said simply, scooting around him on her knees, continuing her careful lines.

Castiel couldn’t tell if it was a good or bad thing for himself. “Getting me ready for what?” He found himself asking, more because it felt like the thing to ask and not because he actually wanted an answer. The more she kept talking the slower her movements were, the more time the Angel bought for Dean to come find him.

The hunter wasn’t dead. Castiel knew that he would somehow feel the wrongness of a world in which Dean Winchester was no longer living and breathing and smiling. 

He was still here somewhere. Somewhere.

He would stop this from happening. 

“Ready for the Boss.” She said it again like a name, like everyone knew who she spoke of.

“I don’t believe I’ve had the chance to meet him… or her.” He had to close his eyes again as a jolt of cold pain snaked from his legs down to his head, as cold and as fast as lighting. But lightening wasn’t cold. That was wrong. The pain was making it hard to think straight so he took slow, even breaths like he had seen Dean do so many times, wondering how it was supposed to help.

“He told me you would come.” She was fully behind him now. Her soft voice making the short hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. “He’s been speaking to me for months now. Helping me find the things I need, telling me where to dig.”

“Did he tell you to kill that little girl that was found in Millington?”

The girl behind him didn’t answer, just noisily scooted round till she came back to his front, accompanied by the soft  _scritch scritch_  of her chalk. 

“She was going to be a vessel, but the Boss didn’t like her. Said something was wrong with her.” The young woman stood again and made noises at his side- but Castiel couldn’t be bothered to open his eyes and see what she was doing. “I thought it would be a waste to just let her go…” she made a strange noise before setting something on the ground with a dull thump. “Boss got real mad- but it’s ok. I caught you. He’ll be happy. He’ll forgive me.”

Castiel slowly opened his eyes again and the light at the end of the hall had changed. The girl was setting out candles for him now, lighting them carefully.

“Does your Boss have another name?” He pointedly looked away from the candles, straining to see the book she had left on the floor, but his eyes were still cloudy with blood and pain and he couldn’t make out the words clearly. 

 The girl was smiling at Castiel by candle light. Six candles, carefully placed around him, lighting the corner of hallway until it was almost as bright as morning.

“He is called by many names.” The light hit her eyes oddly, making them look flat and glassy like a doll’s.

Castiel recognized that expression. He had seen it a thousand times over as nations of mankind rose and fell. It was fanaticism. Manic and wild.

“When I found him in the book his name was written  _Beli_ _Y_ _a’al_.”

That name… Castiel had once known the names of all things, but  _b_ _eli_ _ya’_ _al_? It was Hebrew. It meant ‘never to rise’- it wasn’t a name, it was a curse old housewives spat at loaves of bread that had gone wrong.   

His legs were going slowly numb- and cold had never bothered the Angel before this point, but neither had pain. 

There had to be a first time for everything, he supposed.

“Belial?” He asked through the smothering cold, a horrible inkling making its way to the surface. An uneasy thought had come to him. A different emphasis on the word that she'd given.

“It’s a beautiful name, isn’t it?” Her smile was almost wistful now.

“It is.” That unfamiliar feeling of fear was back and Castiel hoped that it did not show on his face or in his voice.  Belial was not a Hebrew curse, it was the name of one of his brothers. A brother who had been cast out of heaven shortly after Lucifer- no longer an angel, but not a demon either. And on any normal day, laden with his God given Grace, Castiel would have stood his ground and told the thing that was once his family exactly where he could go in no uncertain terms.

But as it was, Castiel had no ground to stand on. His feet were firmly up in the air and his Grace had fled well beyond his reach.

“You need to stop this.” Castiel thought that perhaps he could just reason with her- though over the years he had found very few humans to be reasonable, especially not the female humans.

“Quiet now.” She shushed him the same way you would a child, leaning down to pick up her book. “Don’t go distracting me, this is the tricky part.” She wouldn’t look at him while she spoke, moving around out of his line of sight.

And he had thought that she was going to read from the book. Strange incantation that could only spell disaster to Castiel. He tried to reach for the woman as she circled him, but his arms did not listen, hanging limply over… under? his head, fingertips brushing against the floorboards. He craned his neck to look down at his hands, but he saw nothing wrong with them, no reason for their insubordination. 

She came back around to the front of him, something gleaming in one hand. Something sharp. 

It was not the book.

She held the little instrument with the three last fingers of her right hand while she untucked the Angel’s shirt and let it bunch up under his limp arms.

Castiel did not know the girl’s name, he could not use his Grace to look into her soul as he would have liked to. Instead he tried to speak in the low and reasonable way that he had heard Dean use so many times while trying to calm someone down.

“You don’t want to do this.” The words felt weird and very much not his own. He did not know how the hunter cold always say things so certainly. There was no way to know what the girl wanted, and by the small smile that she wore as she shushed him, Castiel had a strong feeling that he was lying to her.

Even before she began, he had this horrible suspicion of what she was about to do. But his Grace had always kept him safe from the brunt of mortal pain and as such he had never really had to brace for it before. Knowing what she was going to do before hand did not lessen the feeling at all.

Pain so exquisite he could find no words great enough to describe it, blossomed out from his stomach as she started her work

She was quick at least, almost efficient, not at all squeamish about the little bits she was pulling from the Angel’s vessel. Some were placed in jars, some into a small wooden bowl- Castiel had to stop watching very quickly. 

He chose to simply close his eyes and breathe. It was harder to manage that one might think as every inch of his body cried out for him to do something, anything, to make the girl stop. But he couldn’t move any more than a slight twist of his torso which sent him turning in a slow circle and made the girl quite annoyed with him.

She struck him across the face with the flat of her hand and the pain was so insignificant by comparison that Castiel hardly took notice. 

“Stop that.” She said distractedly before continuing to cut and pull.

Castiel gave up and simply dangled as bits of his mind chipped away with each quick movement of her clever hands. He had no idea how long the whole thing took. He only knew that it hurt bad enough that his eyes had grown hot and his stomach rolled and clenched dryly.  Neither were particularly helpful, but human bodies rarely did anything that was helpful.

A vague awareness of his surroundings returned as Castiel heard voices. For the smallest moment he thought that it might be Dean speaking. It was a man’s voice but what little comfort that lent him vanished as he forced his eyes open.

The young woman was kneeling beside the girl in the other circle, holding the wooden bowl which now looked rather empty. Only Castiel did not need his Grace to see that something very significant had changed. 

The child was sitting up now and for all intents and purposes she was still a little girl, with dark hair and drowsy eyes, the soft round cheeks of a child, but that was where the similarities stopped. The thing inside of her was far too large for her tiny frame, hunkered down, rolling and dark like an oil slick rain cloud boiling over her.

 No longer an angel, but not a demon either. 

Belial never had a chance at fitting in the child’s small, innocent body. Castiel could not figure out for the life of him why his brother had even tried. 

“Loyal child,” Belial’s oddly resonant voice came seemingly from the air around the tiny girl, “go and rest. You have done well.”

Castiel could only see the older girl’s back and shoulders as she leaned down over the smaller girl and kissed her hands reverently before raising up on shaky legs and stumbling off into the dark.

Her footsteps faded softly until there was nothing other than the soft flickering noise of twelve candles and someone’s ragged, moist breaths. Dimly, Castiel realized that the second noise belonged to himself. 

He watched with dim eyes as the child slowly clamored to her feet, no gracefulness in her movements, very little coordination, like it was the first time that she had ever tried to stand. It took near a whole minute for her to get her feet stable beneath her.

“Oh, what a fine thing this is.” Her borrowed voice said with a grin.

Castiel could see that her mouth was vivid with blood and for some reason that made a horrible noise crawl its way from his throat.

“You’re still alive?” She asked in surprise, taking a few experimental steps towards him. “How clever of Lauren to catch such a… robust angel just for me.” Belial’s laugh was like the roll of thunder, distant but strong. “Now, which one are you? I don’t recognize this mess.” She gestured at him with a bloody hand and almost lost her balance.

“My name is… is Castiel. I used to belong to… Anna’s garrison.” The Angel’s voice sounded distant to his ears.

“Used to?” 

“Anna… she relinquished her Grace an… an fell.” He either closed his eyes or they simply stopped working for a moment. “The garrison dissolved … sometime… after.”

“A soldier then? I should have guessed.” She was much closer now and one small hand came out of touch Castiel’s cheek. “It would be a shame to kill you, but far too cruel not to.”

Despite what he knew to be a strong sense of self preservation, Castiel had to agree with the thing wearing the child. 

“You’ve served a lovely purpose, dear brother. And I thank you.” She kissed his forehead and Castile found another ruined noise coming unbidden from his throat.

He let out what he assumed would be a last breath, calm as he could, coming to terms with this fate because it meant that the pain would end, and in that moment that was truly all he wanted. All he could think about.

But instead of a simple and clean ending, an odd sound came to Castiel, a heavy, dragging footfall and a metallic thump like the sound of a horseshoe against pavement- and he almost laughed at how strange it would be for a horse to be down here with them. Something odd must have resonated in that noise for the Belial too, because her hand fell from his face and for a brief moment the Angel was alone, left to hang quietly with his ribbons of pain to keep him company.

Another footfall. Another ringing thunk. 

The heat from the candles no longer reached Castiel’s face and he wondered if he would simply slip away without any kind of push to aid him. There was a certain peace to it that he could appreciate. 

The world sort of hung there on the edge, teetering, but he did not fall over the brink. 

A new noise replaced the sound of walking, a soft gasp of breath that was not his own, a whiff of smell over the almost overwhelming stench of blood.

For a brief moment, Castiel recognized that smell and he managed to get one eye to open despite the sticky blood drying slowly over his face.

Sam stood a few feet away, looking pale and filthy, phone raised high overhead, bathing the Angel and the hunter both in feeble light.

Castiel could not see where Belial had gone to, his single working eye could hardly make out more than just the weak, but familiar shadows in the shape of the youngest Winchester. And many panicked thoughts suddenly rolled through his mind, warnings he needed to voice. He needed to tell Sam to run- to find his brother and get out. He needed to exorcise the former Angel from the little girl who couldn’t have gotten far, but that exorcism had too many words and he knew that he would not be able to get them all out. Not in his current condition.

“Gun.” He managed instead. He knew Sam must have one… but that was the wrong weapon for something like Belial. Oh, but Castiel didn’t feel right anymore. He was honestly surprised that he managed a word that even vaguely fit this situation. He could have just as well said ‘cat’, or ‘banana’… well, not banana- that had too many sylables.

 Sam looked questioningly at Castiel before his eyes focused somewhere slightly to the side of him. “Oh.” His voice was higher than it should have been, worry and something else all together compressed into that single word.  

He seemed to hesitate, fiddling with his phone for a second, the light dimming before coming back. “Are you alright?” 

 “Sweet, simple, Sam.” Belial’s voice came from just to the side of Castiel, the earlier notes of kindness abandoned for something far closer to humor.  “You really shouldn’t have come here.”

“Gun.” Castiel wished that his mouth could remember how to make any other word… but Sam was smart, surly he would understand a warning when he heard it. 

Surely.

“I… I don’t think we’ve met.” Sam said brokenly. 

“No, we haven’t. Not formally. Do you think we should?”

“No.” Sam answered rather quickly and firmly, as if being properly introduced to the thing residing in that little girl couldn’t be further from his mind. “I think I should help my friend down.”

“Your  _friend_?” Belial laughed again. “How charming.  _Friend._ _”_  He said the word like he was testing it, experimenting with how it felt rolling around in his newly acquired moth. “Tell me, Sam- does your friend take good care of you as friends should? Do you two go out for drinks together? Did he pull from you the poisonous foxglove?”

Sam did not immediately reply, instead he stood there suspiciously, not moving for long moments. His phone went dark- or Castiel’s eye closed. The Angel really wasn’t sure, and really didn’t think that it mattered at this point.  

“Are you his pet I wonder, or is he yours?” Belial’s voice was like music, rising and falling, too perfect to be human.

“Neither.” Sam answered softly. “Cas? Cas are you alright?”

Apparently Sam was not quite as smart as the Angel had wanted to give him credit for. If he was then he would not still be standing there- completely useless. 

Castiel thought he might have answered ‘no’, but honestly he couldn’t feel his mouth move. He couldn’t feel much of anything other than the cold that had spread from his legs to slowly fill him. It was certainly a more welcome feeling.

Sam may have said something then, or perhaps it was Belial. Masculine tones fading into a white noise that was so very soothing. Castiel did not care, the only thing that mattered was the pleasant nothingness that crashed over him and took away the pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I wrote this story around 7 years back... and tbh, I havn't really watched much spn past season 9. So, did we end up ever getting a Belial in the show? At the time I was writing we didn't have one, and I'm just curious.


	26. Chapter 26

“Son of a bitch.” Dean’s short, hard words rang off the close confines of the little room as he reset his knee. That evil little coffee making witch had managed to dislocate something- bruise something, fracture something positively vital to Dean’s main means of mobility. But despite the swelling and the stabbing pain, he found that his leg could almost hold his weight. He would have to take it easy for the next week or so.

Or, in an effort to maintain the pretense of self destructive foolishness that he had kept up so well for the past twenty years or so, he could pull himself up to his feet and shamble out of the room. Probably tearing ligaments, or who knew what else, with each stubborn step. Dean was nothing if not consistent in his ways.

He had come to with a splitting headache, blood dried and crusting in his hair, still tacky on his face. The girls were both gone. His phone was on the floor, halfway across the room. The smell of violence in the air. 

How could he just lay there whimpering when that familiar scent was calling to him?

With the first turn of luck all day, he didn’t have to hobble far before he found Sam, of all people, risen from his basement without an ounce of help from Dean. His brother was filthy and wide eyed, leaning heavily on a short metal pole. He’d made a crutch to spare his own injured leg. Sam was a resourceful kid like that. Dean wished that providence had given him such a fine walking stick.

All he had was a wall. 

But it was a good wall. 

It had gotten him this far without a hitch.

He had no complaints.

Sam was taking up the majority of a narrow hall, his broad back to Dean, who was on the verge of saying something smartassed and startling him- right up until he caught a glimpse of the hall beyond.

There were unhealthy lines scratched over the floor, burnt out candles, and blood. 

Blood and blood and blood.

And… legs? 

Someone was laying at Sam’s feet.

And Sam standing over all of it with this air of importance and worry.

For whatever reason (and it probably said something about the mess that Dean really was), he recognized those shoes and pants, those short, strong legs that were splayed out on the floor beside his brother. They were Cas’. Of all the things he could recognize. Cas’ shoes. Cas’ legs.

“What the hell happened?” He found himself whispering, not sure if they were still trying to be sneaky or what at this point.

Sam looked over his shoulder, tense and ready to start swinging for just a second, but he eased up a fraction when he saw it was only his brother. “Dean, oh God. I need your help. Cas is hurt.”

Nothing else needed to be said. Dean went from mild worry to instant panic. 

He hobbled up beside his brother to look down at Cas, and Dean’s blood went from fire to ice.

Someone had hurt his friend. Someone with a death wish had been stupid enough to lay a finger on Castiel- and Dean would not leave enough of them behind for any kind of positive ID.

He didn’t know when it happened, but he was on the floor, crouching in the narrow hall, touching Cas’ face and shoulders. “Hey. Hey, Cas. Wake up.” It was a simple command. It was the only thing he needed in this second. He needed Cas to look up at him. He needed to know that his friend was still alive.

 He had to be alive. 

Angels couldn’t die. 

They  _didn’t_  die.

Not like this.

They didn’t look like this when they died.

So Cas couldn’t be dead.

He couldn’t.

“Fuckin’ Cas. Wake up.” Less of a request and more of a plea. And Dean didn’t like, and chose not to address, how his voice was cracking.

“You should not waste your efforts on him.” A voice said, a voice that wasn’t Sam’s or Cas’ and sure as all hell wasn’t Dean’s. “His Grace is gone now and an Angel without their Grace is as good as a corpse. He just doesn’t know it yet.” 

The hunter looked up to see the little girl from the Gardens who had been crying alone in a dirty room some short time before- except something very profound had changed in her . Dean had other things that were far more pressing to him than the obvious evil that had moved into the child, but the change was still unsettling in some deep, brain stem horror kind of way.

 “Sam, what the hell is that thing?” He didn’t take his eyes from the child, suddenly so very certain that looking away would be one of the last mistakes that he would make.

“I-I don’t know. But she said she can help Cas.” Sam said softly, like he was chiding Dean, worried that his big brother might upset the horrible thing standing on the far side of the hall. 

Dean tightened his grip on the Angel’s jacket, bearing his teeth. “Then  _help_  him.” He wasn’t the most trusting sort of person, but he would deal with the obvious possession later, right now all that mattered was that Cas wasn’t moving.

The non-little girl smiled with teeth stained red. “It’s been so long since I’ve walked among humans. What happened to the bowing and fawning and fearful acclamations? Are you  _all_  so demanding and forceful now?”

“If you don’t fucking do something to help right this god damned minute you’re gunna’ see me get real forceful.” Dean was a living breathing threat. He could feel the slightest rise and fall of Cas’ chest under his hands, but it was so weak and Dean was afraid. Fear made him violent. It always had.

 “You wouldn’t want to hurt this innocent child.” She said with a slow, easy confidence. 

“If he dies because you don’t help then I will kill you.” No middle ground. 

The child chuckled, low rolling sound like distant thunder, it prickled the hair on Dean’s arms and made his stomach clench. 

“I did not go through the trouble of finding a suitable vessel just to be threatened by someone’s pet.” She put a small red hand on her hip, angry little lines at the corners of her small red mouth. The suddenly aggressive stance was offset by a clumsy wobble as she struggled to retain her balance. 

“Pet…?” Dean let his eyes flick up to Sam for just a second. “ _Pet_?”

“Pet.” The child’s rumbling voice said firmly as if it clarified anything at all. 

“I don’t-“ Dean felt an awful noise crawling up through him and he choked it back down. “Help him, you creepy son of a bitch!”

“And in exchange...?” She cocked her head to one side, expectant.

Dean had had enough and he pulled his gun, pointing it squarely at her round little face, not sure if it could hurt the thing, or if the creature even knew what a gun was. “I don’t make deals with monsters.”

“Then bid him farewell in my place. He was a good brother to give his life for mine.” And then she was gone with the thunderous sound of wings.

Dean wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. He wanted to yell for her to come back, to give her whatever she wanted if only she would make Cas wake up.

Instead he bunched the sides of the Angel’s jacket and pressed it to the wet, open gash- putting as much pressure on it as he could, feeling the nauseating give of muscle and things that were best to never be touched by things like hands and rumpled coats.

Cas groaned softly and it was the most beautiful damn noise in the world.

If Sam heard his brother’s grateful sob he didn’t say anything, just put a hand on Dean’s shoulder and shook him slightly. “He’s… Dean… I don’t think-”

“Sam, what happened to the other girl, the one that roofied you?” Was that his voice? It couldn’t be his voice. Dean was supposed to have a strong voice. He sounded like a wounded animal.

“I don’t know. I-I haven’t seen her.”

“She’s got to be around here somewhere. Cas didn’t do this to himself.” And Dean knew it had to be the older girl, knew it couldn’t have been the thing in the child. Because if nothing else, the tray in the corner with bloody instruments was set too high for someone so short. 

“And what if she did?” There were times when Sam was less than helpful. 

Dean struggled not to swear at his brother. “Then she can fix this. She can fix Cas.”

“She serves poisoned coffee at a Starbucks, Dean. She’s not a surgeon.”

“She’ll fix him then I’ll kill her.” Maybe he meant ‘ _or’_ , but there was really no reason to correct it. The sentiment wouldn’t change. 

“I can hardly walk, Dean.” Sam was whispering, sounding more like an apology than anything else, like Cas was already gone. “I can’t chase her down for you.”

There were only terrible things left in Dean. “Hold Cas together and keep him breathing until I find the bitch.”

“Dean-”

“You will fuckin’ hold Cas together.” He demanded, and Sam who had never been all that good at following orders before tonight was suddenly kneeling next to him. 

“Press here.” Dean instructed like this would be his brother’s first time trying to keep pressure on an open wound, not the hundredth. 

Sam’s hands settled into place and he couldn’t seem to look at his big brother, or Cas for that matter. His eyes were closed tight and maybe it was just his way of dealing with this, or maybe he was just giving up.

Dean stole his brother’s crutch and with grim determination he went on a witch hunt.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can I sing you a song called 'Sorry For Spamming Your Inbox'?  
> if there's a way to que updates I don't know about it

There was enough of Castiel left to drag himself back to the surface when he heard Dean, smelled Dean- but not enough to tell him hello, and not enough to stay.

He faded back out, going under like a great grey wave was taking him down. Down, down, down.

The tide went back out in time, but it wasn’t Dean with him anymore. Of all the bad luck. He finally managed to get his eyes open and it was the wrong Winchester.

“Cas. Whoa. Hey, t-take it easy.” Sam’s words ran together, just a jumble of sounds, but something had gone oddly wrong, and despite his efforts, Castiel was not strong enough to push the man off of him. The best he managed to do was blink. He felt as weak as a kitten- weaker than Sam, and he had never been so useless before.

“You’re hurt. Try and stay still.” Sam was leaning on him, heavy weight of a full grown man bearing down on the Angel’s midsection.

He tried to ask where Dean had gone, praying silently that it had not just been a trick of his imagination that had put the hunter there with him- but Castiel couldn’t find words, just pain, like his body was waking up to it, remembering how to hurt. He breathed the pain, felt it running up his throat, coating his mouth like heat and copper. Like a live wire.

“No, no, no. Stay with me.” Sam’s voice sounded like it was coming from far, far away. It sounded like he was the one leaving. “Cas!” He kept yelling his strangely quiet yells that came from a far way off.

Somewhere deep in Castiel’s mind, not in the more human part, that gentle, newer part had devolved into a gibbering mess quite some time ago- but the Angelic part, the part that felt nothing, feared nothing, the part that had lived for a millennium on logic, on order- that part of him had stirred to life.

He worked his mouth around a single word. “Belial.” The sounds dragged out long and almost meaningless, hardly enough breath to get it right.  

“What?”

Castiel only saw the dark of the hall, but he knew that Sam must have been leaning over him, warm and close. Struggling to listen.

“Belial.” He tried again, hoping that Sam would somehow understand.

 There was nothing in the hunter’s power to do that would fix Castiel, besides, all the self preservation had left the Angel long ago, around the same time that he had lost any self that was worth trying to preserve.

 But Sam had a special set of skills. Sam could drag Belial back here. He could summon him- Castiel was sure that the young woman had left her book lying around. If the book spoke of Belial, had been her gateway to calling forth the creature, then Sam could use it for the same. He might even be able to find a way to pull Belial from the child’s body. Might be able to save what innocence might still remain.

And for whatever reason, more so than where Dean had run off to, trying to fix that poor child seemed important to Castiel.

“Belial... book.” He tried to point in whatever direction he thought that the tome might have been left, but he couldn’t say for certain if his arm had actually move at all in answer to his intention.

Sam repeated the name, making it a question, struggling. But he was smart, and he had spent years reading lore. “That’s… Cas, Belial is… it’s Hebrew for ‘devil’. I don’t understand.”

“Nn.” Frustration. He hated how humans always blew things so out of proportion. Undeniably, his brother had caused a bit of trouble on Earth after he fell, but  _devil_? Really?

He wouldn’t even make a passable demon, much less the Devil.

“S’jus B’lial.” It came out in a gross whisper, and he wasn’t even sure if he was making any noise at all  now. He tried to say more but things sort of left again, running away from him this time, fleeing into the dark beyond his reach and there was no way he could catch up.


	28. Chapter 28

 Dean found the girl Lauren sleeping- though sleep was a generous term. She was unconscious and it didn’t seem to matter that the hunter was throttling her shoulders, she may as well have been dead. He honestly thought that she was at first, because that would be just his luck- but no. She had a heart beat and a steady breath and all those other helpful things. She was just out.

“God damn you.” He let go of her with enough force it was more of a throw than a drop and she fell back onto the couch. 

He looked around for help. For something that might fix Cas, but what something like that would look like the hunter could only begin to guess. The room was littered with empty coffee cups and books old and archaic enough that Sam probably would have squealed with joy at the sight. However, neither of these things was particularly useful to Dean. 

He debated dragging the girl back down the hall to where he had left his brother, but it’s not like it would have been any kind of solution. Apparently whatever voodoo of spell work she had been up to had taken the fight right out of her. Asleep here or asleep in the hall- it wasn’t much of a difference.

He also debated killing her while she slept. Just a bullet between her eyes. It would be simple, though not particularly clean, and frankly it was more than she deserved. 

It would still make him feel better. He settled for whacking her firmly over the chest with his crutch, not enough to break ribs, but enough that it had to hurt like hell.

Apparently that’s what she had been waiting for. Pain was better than violent shaking, and her eyes flew open as she curled around herself, groaning, and not enough breath left to cry out. Dean raised the metal bar up for another swing, giving her just enough warning.

She crab crawled away from him as much as the couch would allow. 

“You better tell me real fast that you know how to fix him.” 

“Who?” She wasn’t watching Dean so much as the pole he was holding over her.

“The Angel you gutted.” So much anger in those few words. But the anger was pretty much the only thing that was keeping him going at this point.

She kept eyeing the pole, bracing herself when she finally answered. “He’s dead and I’m not a doctor or a necromancer. I can’t fix it.”

“Well, then I hope you enjoy hell.” And he took another swing, though he didn’t mean it. He let the poll barely kissing the top of her head, a glancing blow.

Lauren rolled off the couch, partially enough sense to seek escape, partially just knocked sideways by the hit. Then she was sprawled on the floor, holding her head, the smallest bit of blood on her fingers. By all rights she should have looked terror stricken at her immanent death, but the fire in her eyes was a hot as Dean’s. 

With the ferocity of a feral cat (though not necessarily the agility) she lunged at his legs, taking him down in a tumble. She managed to scratch a little too close to his eye, got her teeth into the meaty part of his shoulder, before Dean finally pinned her down. Even in his injured state he could easily hold his own in a wrestle against a young girl. 

A necklace had slipped free from beneath her shirt during the tumble, almost like a glow stick- a thin, iridescent vial hanging round her neck with all the intensity of a dying star. Dean settled his knees more firmly onto the Lauren’s chest and held a hand half over his eyes, trying to block the light.

“The fuck is that thing?”

She didn’t answer with words so much as she spit in his direction, furious and struggling against him. Dean just leaned down into her, putting enough weight on her chest that she couldn’t get a full breath.

“You did something to him- and I swear to god if you don’t fix it I will turn you inside out.”

Her hands were scrambling against Dean’s knees, clawing at his pants but not able to really do any damage.

“God damn it. Tell me!” With one hand he grabbed at hers, trying to limit her flailing, but his best efforts left her with one still very free and determined hand to scratch at his arms and chest and anywhere else she could get at.

In frustration Dean grabbed hold of her necklace, pulling it free with an inaudible snap of tiny chain links, and he threw the light as far from him as he could manage. It let him stop shielding his eyes and look down at the mess of girl beneath him, finally catching that second hand. Though he felt a thrum of victory the look on her face gave him pause. She was no longer watching him she had twisted, turning her head as far as she could to see where the necklace hand landed.

“No.” Her voice was horse, raw sounding, honestly not any better than Dean’s. “No!” She turned her gaze back up to him, eyes suddenly wet. “You stupid bastard!” 

“Tell me how to fix him.” Dean ignored her name calling, as it was by no means the answer that he needed.

“He’s- he’s going to kill me.” Panic was eking into her voice.

“ _I’m_  going to kill you if you don’t give me a fucking answer.” 

“Then do it already!” She breathily screamed up at him. “I’m not afraid of you.”

Dean would have come back with something snappy or threatening enough to strike some healthy fear into the girl- but he was suddenly struck with the thunderous sound of wings and for a brittle moment he thought it was Cas. It was the noise he usually made, only louder and that had to mean something, right?

But when he looked up it wasn’t Cas standing there. It was the thing wearing the little girl Emily, her mouth still vibrant with blood and her eyes wide and dangerous. 

“You treacherous thing.” Her oddly resonant voice rumbled, itching down Dean’s spine. “Keeping part of that Grace for yourself. I told you what would happen if you did something like this again.”

“Grace?” Dean latched onto that single word, looking franticly to the dark corner where he should have seen the harsh light of the necklace. “Was that Cas’… his Grace?”

The child bore her teeth. “Part of it. A small part of it. This snake was supposed to give me the whole thing.” 

In an instant Dean decided that the girls (or the girl and the monster) could sort this out on their own. He suddenly had something far more important to do. With a painful hobble  he pushed himself off of Lauren and rushed to the far side of the room, pushing aside books and trash, trying to find the bit of jewelry that had so suddenly gone dark. 

The creature in the child didn’t yell, it didn’t shout, or raise its voice above that rolling whisper, so low and filled with such anger. “The spell calls for the  _whole_  thing. Did you think that a portion would suffice?”

Dean didn’t even look over at them, didn’t acknowledge the older girl’s sudden pleading and apologies. And they in turn paid no attention to him.

 He found the necklace. 

The vial had shattered and no glimmer of holy light remained. 


	29. Chapter 29

Heat like a bonfire. 

Heat like a dying star burned through Castiel. 

He arched up with a strangled cry, fighting the hands that held him down as that unexpected heat ate through the pain like acid, hollowing him out. Leaving him clean and new and raw. It was only a small fraction of his Grace that had come home to roost- but he felt a wild joy spilling through him at the familiar feeling that settled deep into his bones. 

“Cas? Oh god. Cas,” Sam’s grating voice prickled the raw nerves along his spine. “You’ve got to stay still, man. You’re hurt real bad.”

He got a weak grip on the hunter’s arms, pushing him and his unwanted assistance away. 

“This is not helping me, Sam.”

“You’ve got a hole in you.” The hunter tried to explain why he was still stubbornly keeping his hands on the Angel’s fairly moist midsection, constant pressure which should have hurt but now only felt heavy and inconvenient.

“I’m attempting to fix it.” Castiel insisted, finding the strength to fight Sam and his good intentions off. 

Though he was unsure why his Grace had fled him in the first place, or why only part had seen fit to return, it was enough. Enough to stop the bleeding and to mask the pain. Enough that he was able to pull himself upright. He needed to get all the way up. He needed to find the girl who had cut him open, because his addled mind informed him that she would know where the rest of his Grace had gone. Much the same as he was sure that he would need the rest of his Grace if he intended to summon Belial and pull him from whatever remained of that small child. 

Sam looked far beyond worried, red, wet arms held out as if to catch him should the Angel suddenly tumble backwards. “You shouldn’t be moving, Cas.”

Castiel ignored the advice and pressed his hands to his stomach, exploring the edges of the angry hole with his fingers, prodding at the wet bits, feeling a weird roll of nausea in response. 

“Oh god. Don’t poke at it.” 

“Where as I appreciate your prayer- I don’t think it will be of much help in this situation.” 

The hole was fascinating to him if only because it had no business being there. The return of his Grace should have seen an end to the weak blood flow. But it didn’t and Castiel couldn’t help but let his fingers investigate the great, gaping wrongness. 

 “I think that my Grace is… most of it isn’t here.” He decided finally. It was the only reason he could come up with for why his body remained broken.

“Is that… normal?” Sam seemed to stumble over his words and it was obvious that his worry had lowered his intelligence if he was asking such an obvious question. 

“Don’t be stupid.” He pressed the flats of his palms to his stomach, doing his best to put everything back where he thought it should go. The movement ended with him doubled over, shuddering as another swell of nausea rocked him. It was better than the pain, certainly more welcome, though just as unnatural for an Angel to experience.

 There was not enough Grace left to balance out the humanity that riddled his broken vessel.

When he looked up he was surprised to see a slightly horrified look on the hunter’s face. 

“I will be fine in time.” He attempted to assure the man.

Sam’s expression turned pleading. “You’ve been dead for almost three minutes, Cas. You stopped breathing and I… have no idea how you’re even- don’t get up!” He grabbed at Castiel, keeping him from standing. 

“Staying here is not going to help anyone.”

“You’ll bleed out.” Sam stubbornly held on to him like an anchor.

The Angel looked critically at his red soaked shirt and the cooling puddle he had left on the floor. “I believe I already have. But what Grace I have left will keep me together for now. Even if I cannot find the rest of it, in a few weeks it should have had opportunity to… recharge? Is that what Dean would call it?”

Sam nodded. “Sure. Recharge.” His hands stayed firmly around whatever part of the Angel he could keep a grip on. “But that’s weeks, Cas. And this is now. Maybe you’re breathing again, and there’s lot that I don’t know about Angels- but you can’t walk around with a hole that big in your stomach. You look like a god damned autopsy.”

Castiel almost argued against the blasphemy and the negative words, not that he had much practice or skill at disagreeing. The truth of the matter was that Sam almost definitely was correct in his assessment. So the Angel let himself be lowered as far as a deep recline, propping himself up on his elbows and letting gravity hold his insiders where they belonged. He considered asking Sam to sew him closed- because he knew that the young man was well versed in stitching wounds. But a better idea nagged at Castiel and as he lay there, looking up at the hunter, he thought that perhaps he was brave enough to ask.

“Sam?”

The man only nodded in acknowledgment, pressing his hands over the Angel’s wound, doing what he knew how to do.

“I need to ask a favor.”

Without any hesitation, Sam nodded again. “Yeah, Cas. Anything you need.”

He wanted to ask to touch Sam’s soul, to use that beautiful budding bit of life to  _jumpstart_ , as Dean would call it, his own Grace.

Sam would probably say yes. He was generally a helpful, giving sort of person. But Castiel suddenly found that he couldn’t ask… or he didn’t want to. It had only been a few hours ago that he was digging around in the man, pulling poison from him, putting him back together. For whatever good it had done, because Sam looked almost as bad now. One long leg sprawled out sideways, no shoe to cover the horribly bruised and swollen skin. He wasn’t in much of a state to help anyone other than putting pressure where he needed to.

“Cas?” Sam’s voice was so soft, so uncertain. It sounded nothing like him. 

The Angel let his eyes close, but for the first time in hours he felt like he had control over the action. He reluctantly explained what it was that he wanted to do, carefully adding on the damage he could cause if it somehow went wrong. 

“If you do, can you fix my leg?”

“Yes.” Castiel opened his eyes, surprised at how eager Sam already sounded, despite the warnings.

Sam didn’t really take any time to think it over, he just nodded, accepting. His face was so pale, sweat dampening his hair, blood up to his elbows. He looked worn thin and simply done, but he was still agreeing. And Castiel thought back to the soul he had brushed against that morning in the wake of the car accident. 

The Winchesters were quite the matched set. Both too fierce and loyal for their own self preservation.

 And perhaps that was one of the reasons that Castiel had attached himself to the brothers years ago. 

Every once in a while he questioned himself and why he put up with their ungrateful, destructive natures. Then there were times like this. 

“I will try and be careful.” His hand slid slightly, damp with his own blood, as he settled it over Sam’s chest. 

The young man looked like he was bracing himself, his whole body tight with anticipation even as he grimly leaned into the touch. “How bad will this hurt?” 

“Quite a bit, I imagine.” Castiel apologized as he let what remained of his Grace spill up through his hand and into Sam, cautiously brushing against the man’s soul, searching for a place to hold to. 

Distantly he heard someone gasping, frantic, pained breaths, but such things didn’t matter. 

After a painfully long second his Grace rolled back into him, a great wave of everything that he was and everything that he should be. Not enough to make him whole but more than enough for him to suddenly feel the terrifying wrongness of one of his brothers close at hand. Belial was still close, the smell of him like a bad taste on the back of Castiel’s tongue. 

A problem that needed immediate addressing. 

With just as much care as before, but with an added sense of urgency, he pulled away from Sam, letting himself fall those last few inches to the cold floor. His back rigid as he took a few slow breaths, letting everything settle.

“Are you alright, Sam?” He flinched at the loudness of his own voice, and even as he spoke he was checking himself over, fingers sliding slick across the clean new flesh of his stomach.

“Yeah.” Came the lie after some hesitation.

Castiel looked up and frowned, not liking the bleached skin and wide, wet eyes of the young man. 

Sam roughly cleared his throat and went to wipe at his eyes, but after a confused examination of his bloodied hands, he settled for pressing the side of his face onto his left shoulder then right. “I’m fine, Cas.” He insisted. “It just- it wasn’t what I expected.”

“I did warn you that it would hurt.” He carefully sat up, enjoying the lack of aches or pains or other horribly human feelings that had been such a large part of his afternoon up until this point. “There should be no permanent damage, though you might feel tired or unusually sad for the next few days.”

Sam almost laughed, an unpleasant sound trying to masquerade itself as something better. “Sad?”

“Joy feeds your soul. I recommend finding something that you enjoy doing once this is all over. It should help.” He advised, reaching for Sam’s leg.

The hunter shied away for a nervous second, looking at Castiel as if he didn’t trust him, which was a new expression for him.

“I can fix it.” The Angel offered gently, not sure how to interpret the glance. 

“Right.” He visibly made himself relax. “When Dean gets back here you’ll get to patch him up too.”

“Dean’s hurt?” Castiel’s hand hesitated over the hunter’s ruined ankle. 

“Well, not bad enough to keep him from going off, hell bent on trying to save you.”

That sounded like something that Dean would do. “But I’m  _fine_.”

“You weren’t when he left to find help.” Sam gave Castiel a weak, but honest smile. An odd tenderness and there was no way to tell if it was directed at the Angel or at his own brother and his predictably noble actions.

For some reason this made Castiel happy. No logic to be found anywhere in the feeling, but there it was. He mended the hunter’s leg, and it was taxing on his freshly grown Grace, but he was more than willing to help. It made for an almost even exchange between them. They certainly had similar feelings of gratitude towards one another if nothing else.

“Dean’s been gone for a while.” Sam rubbed at his bare foot, feeling the strong bones all where they should be. Smiling to himself despite the worry in his words. “If you’re ok to get up we should go find him- before he does something stupid.” He added at the end, climbing to his feet with a bit of an unsteady wobble, seemingly not trusting his leg to hold his weight at first. He found his balance, and a smile before holding out a hand.

Castiel took Sam’s offered help and dragged himself to his own feet. “Do you think he would do something… stupid?”

“He will. Every time you’re involved.” Sam guaranteed.


	30. Chapter 30

Maybe Dean was fairly inclined towards poorer and poorer decisions where Castiel was involved. Certainly everything up until this point did sort of support the theory. And everything that followed only served to reiterate. But maybe stupid choices worked for him. 

He had survived this long- either because of, or despite of, all those stupid choices that he had been making his whole life. It was those kinds of choices that had resulted in numerous broken bones and head injuries. Lost sleep and hangovers. A kid brother who was somehow still alive and countless people that the two of them had saved. It was those kinds of choices that had seen him and Cas in bed together last night. It was those same kinds of choices that had brought him here, to the undergrounds of Chicago, watching a child, possessed with only god knew what, killing a person who should have had the privilege of dying at Dean’s hands. 

The coffee-witch had skimped on the angelic Grace delivery and that was enough to make anyone mad. But the bitch had the nerve to take all that Grace from Cas before leaving the Angel to bleed out- and that meant that Dean should be the one who got to bash her head in. But he would need to work quickly if he was going to have a go at her before the monster finished her off. 

There were certain benefits to having the only people in the room so occupied with killing or staying alive to pay any attention to Dean and what he was doing. It meant that he was free to drag himself up to his feet and get far too close before anyone even blinked in his direction. 

The child had something in her, something bad that Dean hadn’t yet identified. And he didn’t know how to cast it out anymore than he knew if he  _could_  even do such a thing. Dean decided to steer clear until he could do something definitive to her.

However the young woman, Lauren, had to be human if only because more exciting monsters didn’t need magic. It meant that she was susceptible to normal human destructions. He emptied half of his clip into her head. It was overkill and messy and in such a small room at such a close range it was deafening as well. Honestly, Dean had wanted to do something far more physical to her, something with his hands so he could have a very real and solid outlet for the god awful feeling that was slowly over taking him. 

Dean had left Cas behind in a feeble hope of finding some kind of salvation. But in all likelihood he had left his friend to die and it was as if Dean’s world had been pinholed down around that fact. 

He felt hot and cold and crippled. Because people die. He’s been painfully aware of that since he was four years old and his only mom had been taken away from him. And he had seen many deaths since then, was certain to see many more because that was the nature of his job- but that didn’t mean that he was ready to lose someone like Cas. Seeing a stranger die when you knew that you had done as much as you could and it still wasn’t enough, was different than knowing that you had to let go of someone that you loved. 

It hadn’t ended well when the universe had tried to take his brother from him.

It wasn’t going to end any better with it trying to take Cas.

Killing Lauren hadn’t made him feel any better.

But he honestly hadn’t expected it to.

It was just something that needed to be done to help console the gibbering mess that was threatening to spill out of him.

The child looked up at Dean, now splattered with bone and blood and she didn’t look horrified like she should have. Like anyone who had stood about two feet away from someone who no longer had a face should have looked. She looked annoyed, and it seemed out of place with the blood and carnage. 

“I wasn’t  _done_  with her.”

Dean faintly heard her over the ringing in his ears.

“She intentionally mislaid that spell.” The girl continued. “She needed to be punished for it.”

“Can you help Cas?” He demanded, not quite leveling the gun at her, because despite what was currently living in her, she was still just a kid. Someone’s kid was still in there somewhere and didn’t need to be looking up the barrel of a .45. 

“You killed her.” Again, far more annoyance in her voice than any real anger. “I needed her to do the spell again. I can’t keep this body with an incomplete Grace. Do you have any idea how long it took for me to find someone willing to kill an Angel? That particular level of devotion is not as common as you might think.”

Even if they are hard to find, the creature still found one person willing to kill an Angel. And wasn’t that more than enough?

Dean was already teetering on the edge of reason, but those words were nearly enough to take him the rest of the way down. The only reason that a bullet didn’t find its way between her big dark eyes was that she had started her rambling words with the idea that she wouldn’t be able to keep the child’s body. Dean didn’t shoot her, but he did say a few carefully chosen words in a broken sort of voice, all anger and ruin and full of pain. 

The child prodded grumpily at the dead body with one small shoe before looking back up at Dean. “I don’t suppose that you can be convinced to pull that last bit of Grace from your friend and bring it to me?” 

 “I would rather see you suffer slowly and painfully.” He managed to force out from clenched teeth. 

But she had said ‘last bit of Grace’. She had said it like she honestly believed that the bit of Grace that had been kept from her hadn’t just vanished into the ether, but had in fact returned to its owner. And through all the awful terrible things boiling up inside of Dean, those firm and solid feelings that he had lost Cas, there was a glimmer of hope. 

It was all that Dean could do to keep from painfully limping at top speed back to the hall where he had left his brother to watch over the Angel. 

“You were never going to help save him, were you?”

“I could be persuaded to gut a different brother to save the one who bled for me. To give him borrowed Grace the same way it was given to me.” A sliminess had entered her tone and she sounded more like a used car salesman than an Angel.

And Dean had met some awful Angels over the past two years. But if this thing was one, then she was definitely the winner. Maybe Angels were supposed to be neutral, in their own destructive, overly manipulative and controlling way. This one was different. Dean knew evil when he felt it. He’d been face to face with it too many times over his life to not recognize it for what it was.

“If I don’t help, what happens to you?”

She started pacing, agitation overriding the need to bargain. “I’ve always hated humans. So short sighted and weak. No commitment. No sense of self preservation, and it gets worse every century. A hundred years ago you would have at least had the decency to cower a little in the presence of divinity.”

“There’s nothing divine about you, you feathery little psycho.”

Her tiny nostrils faired and her resonate voice shook the walls, little clouds of mortar crumbling free from the cracks in the ceiling.  “My kind has been around forever. We were the first and we will be the last and you should find some respect in that heathen heart of yours.”

Dean laughed, which wasn’t at all the right sort of answer. “It’s a little hard to work up some fear when you look like a kid who lost a fight with a bottle of strawberry syrup.”

She didn’t have to speak for more cracks to run across the ceiling as the pressure in the room shifted like they were suddenly taking a steep climb in elevation. Dean’s ears needed to pop and a monster of a headache struck him like a bat to the back of the head. Blood was running from his nose down his chin and he staggered. 

“Belial, this is enough.” Cas’s voice didn’t cut through the pain so much as give it a little extra flavor. 

Dean almost fell as he tried to turn on his bad leg to look at practically the most beautiful man he had ever seen, standing there, bright eyed, ruined shirt, moving and breathing and absolutely perfect. Sam was there too, but it was slightly less important in that moment.

The child sneered. “You’re a stubborn one aren’t you? How many times do you want to die today, little soldier?”

Cas didn’t answer, even though it was the perfect opportunity for one of his incomprehensibly odd comebacks that he was so good at. Instead he simply closed his eyes and let his whole body relax for a moment into an unspeakably serene expression.

“Are you  _praying_?” The creature managed to make the word sound like a curse. “Do you think anyone is going to answer the prayer of a broken thing like you? No garrison. All of heaven in upheaval. Who is there to listen?”

“You might be surprised.” Cas said softly. 

The whole building trembled, the foundations that had stood for a hundred years, despite fire and the ravages of time, shook.

“Dean, Sam, cover your eyes.” Cas instructed so calmly, and the brothers did their best to follow that order with urgency. If nothing else, Dean remembered what happened the last time Angels were involved and someone was shouting for him to cover his eyes.

The pressure built and Dean’s ears finally popped, though it didn’t offer any relief. The whole building felt unstable, creaking and groaning in protest to being invaded by any additional heavenly host. From the noises that the thing possessing Emily made, she wasn’t too pleased by the company either.

Even with his eyes closed and a hand pressed over them tightly, Dean could still see the light, feel the heat. He had no idea how long he half crouched there, hiding his face from all that righteous light. A few minutes. A few seconds. There was no way to really tell as everything just sort of tumbled and bled together in a confusion of sound and light.

Then there was a child crying. No resonant, rich voice, just a little girl caught between a panicked scream and a heartbreaking sob.

Hesitantly, Dean peered out from around his fingers to see Cas sitting on the floor between a very dead witch and a hysterical child coated in blood. The Angel was patting the child’s shoulders, like you would comfort an adult who was trying to be brave and not cry- but she was far past that point now.

This was Sam’s job. Crying women and crying children were his thing, and Dean didn’t even have to point it out. His kid brother was just there taking the girl from Cas, putting his arms around her and scooping her up. She cried against his shoulder, and clung to him like he was family and not some giant stranger who had plucked her up and dragged her skyward. 

Dean managed to do roughly the same thing, only he wasn’t strong enough to lift Cas, and the Angel wasn’t in need of a good and well deserved cry. However he did fold into the hunter’s arms like he belonged there, despite the openly confused expression he wore. 

“You’re holding me very tightly, Dean.” Cas pointed out.

It didn’t matter that they were both filthy at this point, or that there was a sobbing child just over there, or a corpse on the floor the other way. Dean had no intention of letting go anytime soon. “It’s called a hug, you beautiful son of a bitch.” 

“I know what a hug-”

Dean kissed the Angel who fit so perfectly against him, stopping any pretenses of talking because there wasn’t anything either of them could say that they didn’t already both know. He just wanted to feel the Angel’s breath, his heartbeat, the roughness of his cheeks and the damp heat of his mouth. 

Cas made a surprised noise, because he never ceased to be astounded by the most simple and basic of things. And he didn’t fight Dean, or argue that now was not the time or place to try and crawl inside of each other. 

They had Sam for that, and the young hunter was more than happy to take his job of ‘stick in the mud’ very seriously. 

“Dean- we need to get her home, or to a hospital, or police station -something. I don’t know if she’s hurt, but she’s definitely not ok.”

“I wanna’- go- home.” She managed to string the words in between harsh little hiccoughs. 

“And that’s where we’ll take you.” Sam whispered into her hair, looking in his brother’s direction with a generally upset expression carved into the lines of his face.  “Dean, let go of Cas’ mouth and ask if he can take her home.”

Some days he hated the way his brother said his name. 

He managed to stop kissing his Cas, though he didn’t loosen up on the hug in the slightest, arms still tight around the other man’s shoulders. “You can get her back home, right?”

“It would make me very happy to bring her home.” The Angel looked tired but very willing.

And Dean wanted to ask if Cas had enough mojo going for him to move all four of them round and about after so recently leaning on death’s door. But Cas was already gone and so was Emily, and Dean’s arms felt empty and cold.

Sam sighed, kind of hugging himself now that his arms were no longer occupied, but at the last moment he adjusted and settled for folding his arms over his chest which was far more manly looking. “You don’t suppose he’s going to magic all that blood off of her before giving her back to her parents… is he?” 

“Probably not.” Dean kind of smiled even though it felt grossly inappropriate.

Sam glanced at the body on the floor and back at Dean, a pained look passing over him. “How many bullets was that?”

“Only six.” Dean sniffed and wiped blood from his nose and lip. 

“One would have been enough.” Sam spoke so soft and careful. 

“I thought she killed Cas… and I know she almost killed you this morning.” The anger had dropped out when Cas had come into the room and now all Dean’s words only felt like terrible excuses. “What that thing was going to do to her would have been worse.”

Sam licked his lips, readying to speak but changing his mind. Settling for putting a firm hand on his big brother’s shoulder in a way that was supposed to be comforting. 

They looked at each other, a silent battle over who was going to fuss over who, and Dean won, because he was older and had more experience being a needlessly compulsive caregiver.

“You doing ok, Sammy?” 

“I’ve had better days.” 

.:.

Back at the motel, with the AC running full blast, Dean was sprawled out on one of the beds, Cas tucked firmly against him, while they listened to Sam showering in the other room. They were all of them exhausted. The quiet and stillness of the evening was all that they needed and asked for. Dean personally didn’t have even half the energy needed to go out drinking and celebrating a successful hunt like they would have otherwise. But this was better. 

Why would he need a drink when he had Cas’ soft breath and dry lips against his throat? 

Oh, and Dean was never good at things like this. Even half asleep, completely worn out, he found himself overly aware of the fact that they were… cuddling. After the day he had had, perhaps he had earned the little down time. It certainly felt fantastic. 

“You sure you’re feeling ok?” Dean gave Cas a little squeeze, arm around his shoulders.

“My vessel is still… settling. I imagine I will be a bit tired for a few more hours.” 

“A few more hours.” Dean repeated with a smile, turning just a little to kiss the man’s head. “You almost died today and you just need a few more hours?”

“I think I  _did_  die.” Cas smoothed a hand down he hunter’s chest, settling somewhere near his ribs. “It was not a pleasant experience.”

Dean found himself making a noise that hurt his throat. It wasn’t like he had that much in the way of family. It was just him, Sammy, Bobby and the dark haired man who playing with the hem of his tshirt. 

He didn’t think he could handle losing any one of them. 

“Cas… I… you scared me today.”

“I’m sorry.” He looked up with his impossibly deep eyes. “I think I scared myself. Dying is… I don’t know why you and Sam do it so often. It is very unpleasant.”

And that drew a quiet chuckle from Dean. “We don’t do it on purpose.”

“Can you try to do it less?”

“I’ll try my best.” He promised for both their sake. 

Their lips touched for a moment, just a gentle reminder that they still could. Small, simple pleasures.

And Dean looked at the man that he had found, or the one that had found him. He supposed from the very first moment that Cas put hand to him in hell, to pull him back together and drag his sorry ass back to the land of the living, they were going to be stuck together. And other than for a few little bumps in the beginning, Dean had never wanted anything other than this right here. And he knew that that was a bit messed up on a few separate levels. But he didn’t care. He was happy, so it couldn’t be all that bad.

Two years worth of a crush on the Angel had been too long. Watching as the man settled comfortably against his shoulder like he belonged, Dean could only think of what a waste those two years had been.

“Cas?” The bottom was rabidly dropping out of Dean, all kinds of anxiety setting in as he looked for the words that he wanted.

“Yes?” 

If he said it fast maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Like a band aid. “Just in case something else happens and I don’t get another chance to say it… I love you.” 

“I know.” Cas said so matter-of-factly. 

Dean laughed again, startled and shocked. “You- you  _know_? Well ok then Han Solo. I’m glad we had this little talk.”

The Angel looked up at him, a confused little furrow between his brows. “Sam told me months ago… was it a secret?”

“Sam told you?” Dean looked at the bathroom door and shook his head.  _Months_ _ago?_  It was almost comforting to know that his brother knew him better than he knew himself. In all honesty, Dean had only figured it out a few weeks back and even then he had been arguing with himself about it, trying to talk himself down. “No it wasn’t a secret. I guess I was just the only one who didn’t know.”

Cas gave him another one of those soft, half kisses. “We knew you would figure it out eventually.”

“Your confidence in me is very touching.” He rolled his eyes, licking his lips for a second, chasing the lingering taste of the other man. 

“Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“Is this the part where I say I love you too?”

He couldn’t just say  _yes_  (even though it was precisely that part), because he knew Cas well enough to know that the man would just do whatever he was told. He was generally good like that. Dean didn’t want a coerced confession. He would rather take his feelings to a cold and lonely grave than to hear those three words uttered under false pretenses.

He settled on the safest answer he could find. “…only if you want to.”

Cas pressed a kiss to the surprised curve of Dean’s mouth. “I assumed that you already knew.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *jazz hands*


End file.
